Quoshoopy
by Falaphesian
Summary: After breaking up with his girlfriend, Sora quickly begins to discover that the connections between dreams and realities run deeper than he thought. Well connections are great. But where does common sense fit into Sora's messy life? CS, LR, YK
1. Prologue: Dominoizasm

**Quoshoopy**

'_Prologue: Dominoizasm'_

It began, as many things do, with a dream—a premonition of sorts—a divine intervention of the great Poobah in the lives of the small mortal ants crawling about and over his most immortal toes. Yes, it was a dream. A very troublesome, very different sort of dream which caused Sora to awake in a cold-sweat, blue eyes wide in the dark of his room, mouth open to say something, mind racing, frantically searching for, for—for _what_, he wasn't sure. He couldn't possibly be sure.

But he was certain that he knew someone who would be.

And it was with this beginning that Sora rolled out of bed, still shaken, still startled, still all out of sorts and pulling on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, sliding on some sandals and jogging out of his apartment. He was going for help. He was going for counseling.

He was going to see his girlfriend—the only one he knew to provide help and counseling at all hours of the night.

x x x

"Sora! Wh-what are you doing here?" Kairi rubbed her left eye with a scrunched up fist before blinking blearily again at the young man standing in her doorway, anxious and confused. She shuffled to the side to allow him in, closing the door sleepily behind her and stifling a yawn with her free hand.

Kairi's apartment was a picture-perfect little thing, easily falling into that category of wealth in which the occupant was almost-but-not-quite capable of owning a house. Neatly furnished with warm, perfectly-coordinated colors, the rooms were dark and still as Sora flitted past them, his hands darting across the air in rapid movements as he fought to calm down and explain. Behind him, Kairi was staring once again, her half-conscious mind throwing a bit of a fit at not even receiving a kiss from her beloved boyfriend upon his strange little midnight arrival.

"I had a dream, Kai," Sora declaired.

"We all have dreams, Sora," she calmly stated, and could do nothing but follow grudgingly behind as Sora raced into the small den near the back of the apartment, pacing up a still greater storm there as Kairi seated herself at the computer desk, leaning back as Sora continued to breathe heavily and murmur quietly, distractedly, before her very eyes. It was sort of, in some twisted, abstract way, like watching one of those little white lab mice all the scientists love so much caught up in a giant maze. Sora's nose even went so far as to twitch along with the rest of his jerky motions. A little mouse, indeed, Kairi decided. Only with it's tail cut off and wearing sandals and pants. _What a cute rat_, Kairi thought.

"This wasn't any ordinary dream though!" Sora was saying. In between his thoughts came muttered phrases Kairi couldn't make out—maybe they were a word or two long, but then Sora was speaking audibly again. "It was... I mean… it was _disturbing_. It was **real**, but it wasn't. It was painful, but yanno, not in that normal way that dreams are painful or anything. No one was hurting me, I wasn't supposed to be hurting, and I don't think you can feel feelings in dreams—can you Kai? I didn't think you could. I never have before. But I mean, this thing really just... It really _hurt_! I mean I woke up and I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out if it was real or-"

"Sora. You're _still_ freaking out," Kairi felt obligated to point out.

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are." She rolled her eyes to emphasize her point as Sora blinked at his own erratic little hand motion before bringing his arms to his sides, pouting angrily.

"I'm _not_."

"Whatever, whatever! Fine! You're not!" Turning towards her computer, Kairi jabbed the power button and sat back again, now almost fully awake and functioning in her normal, logical manner. She leaned over and switched on the desk lamp while Sora fidgeted, wondering whether he should continue or not—wondering if there was really any point. ...Wondering why he'd raced all the way out here in the middle of the night after all. ...Wondering what on earth he'd thought Kairi would be able to-

"Describe it for me," she said.

"Huh?"

"Your dream. What happened in it?"

And so Sora resumed his pacing, but ensured that his hands were tucked safely into his pockets as his feet pattered anxiously across the floor, back and forth, back and forth, plainly and painfully out of sync with his voice as he rattled off as much as he could as fast as he could, clearly afraid of forgetting the slightest detail before he could get it all out into the open.

"Okay, okay, so I was on a beach and everything. Like... where we used to hang out as kids, remember?"

"I remember, Sora." Kairi typed something out on the keyboard. Sora ignored it.

"And... It's like—"

_It was a beach like no other—beautiful and pristine like few are today. The community was too small, too normal to thrive off of tourism, and so the sand remained as clear as it may have been the day it was first scattered on the shore like so many pearls poured out of a bucket from the sky. He could only smile. He was walked on a beach of pearls—the fulfilled dream of every grain of sand—to become something beautiful and loved._

"I was standing there and I was watching the water or something, I guess, I don't remember, but it just... _fwoosh_! It just shot right back out into the ocean—the water zoomed backwards all of a sudden, and I started freaking out- don't **laugh**, Kai!- because I thought it was a tidal wave or something. And it _was_, right there, right in front of me and I was just standing there like a total idiot! But I mean, I couldn't move because..."

_The pearls followed the water and rolled downward, and because he couldn't keep his balance he slipped, arms pinwheeling wildly, body trying to retain its balance on a ground trying to disappear. On his knees, his hands fell against hardwood planking—a straggling pearl rolled past his left hand, its path carrying it towards—and then past—the man in the now shallow water, who stood facing his end, oblivious to Sora kneeling behind him._

Here Sora gulped and glanced nervously towards Kairi, still seated in front of her computer and still jabbing a few keys every now and then. Her right thumb was pressed against her lips, its nail tapping against her teeth—a habit taken up as an alternative to nail biting. She glanced up from the screen at the pause, shooting her boyfriend an expectant look.

"You couldn't move because...?"

"Because of Riku," Sora mumbled. His palms were sweating then, so he hastily removed them from the pockets of his sweatpants, resuming his pacing, possibly wearing a hole straight through the floor. If Kairi noticed, she said nothing. She just waited patiently for Sora to continue. And continue he did.

"Riku was standing in the water, Kairi. And... the tidal wave was just building up like crazy behind him and I know I was thinking like... 'Holy _crap_, Riku's going to get killed!' And... I mean, I was really... I just... I was just really... terrified, I guess. More than you're supposed to be in a dream. But... when Riku just finally turned around, he looked calm as hell..."

Her head was tilted at an angle as she looked at her computer screen. Sora couldn't tell if she'd been listening to him or not, but he could only assume she had been. It was very rare that Kairi didn't listen, that she didn't pick up what all was going on around her. There was a slight twist in his chest as Sora thought this. He trusted Kairi to listen. He trusted Kairi to tell him what to do. Yet was it truly trust or was it dependence, after all?

She asked, "Was he dripping?"

"Was he whatta?" Sora asked incredulously, a sudden blush jolting onto his face with such force that he nearly felt dizzy with the rush of blood. Grabbing onto the back of Kairi's desk chair, he steadied himself as his girlfriend prattled on quite harmlessly.

"_Dripping_. Was Riku dripping? He **was** standing in the ocean, Sora. So was he dripping or what?"

"Well... I... I guess... so."

"M'kay." Sora blinked. Kairi smiled. She told him, "What you have so far is this. The ocean represents your emotions and feelings, or it could sorta be like... refreshing, you know? Spiritually and everything. And Riku's dripping with water signifies that you're losing your own spiritual will. Or something."

"...Wait... I'm..."

"'_Losing your spiritual will_,' **honestly** Sora. Or experiencing something disturbing that affects your psyche. _Or_ it could apply to Riku, I dunno." Kairi grinned quite cheerfully and Sora's stomach clenched painfully inside him, way down somewhere past his ribs and buried beneath all the other guts and bones crammed into the human body. He had a bad feeling about it all. He didn't know how much confidence could be had in whatever information could be gleaned from some obscure dream dictionary website, but Kairi was perfectly oblivious, seemingly delighted by Sora's murky looking dreamscape. She urged him to go on, and for lack of a better plan, Sora did. He remained ever so trusting.

"Well... uh... and so I ran out to him because... I wanted to pull him back from the tidal wave and all..."

"The tidal wave apparently represents a sort of huge, overwhelming kinda… _emotional_ problem of yours. It says here that for it to be a tidal wave, it must be pretty important and resolved quickly."

"...And..." Sora swallowed, but it couldn't get around the large lump forming in his throat. No way was this happening... "And um... and so I was running to him and his hair was getting in his face and all from the wind and the water and... I... uh..."

"Hair represents sexual kinds of things. Seduction, sensuality... things like that, you know?"

_Kzzt--pop. Pop._ Sora could practically **feel** the little cells in his brain zapping themselves to death over this. Thankfully Kairi couldn't make out much of his face in the dark. She might have seen how red he was right then, just a regular tomato. _-You say poe-tay-toe, I say poe-tah-toe... Poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe! Tah-may-toe! Tah-mah-toe! Let's call the whole thing off!-_ Anyway. She _might_ have seen that telltale blush _-The Telltale Heart,_ _ka-thunk, ka-thunk-_ and she _might_ have saved herself a great deal of pain in the long run. But no, sadly, Kairi was busy typing away, her fingers striking the keyboard slow and accurate.

"What else was there, Sora?" Her words, her voice, his trust- the things that were still driving Sora on. He didn't know how or why, exactly, but he did know he wanted answers, no matter how painful they might be.

"I started falling... I mean... I was pulled beneath the water... Riku too. But I started falling through it... and he disappeared."

_He expected to hit a wall of pearls and sand, for he himself had seen them roll into the waters and he himself was now falling through those very same waters. But there were no pearls—there was just a blurred image of a girl and the sky, and the man was gone and the water pulled him under—further than under, even. The water pulled in through. _

Clapping her hands together excitedly, Kairi declared, "Falling through water means you're totally overwhelmed with your emotions- kinda like the tidal wave, remember?- _annnd_ it says you probably feel it's easier to give up than to try and swim or fight the current pulling you un-"

That did it.

"This is too much," Sora whispered. He turned and was off like a shot, zipping down the hallway of Kairi's apartment, nearly colliding with the door as he fought to open it and run. Running was the only thought on his mind, and the power of that thought made it such that he couldn't even explain it to Kairi, and even his own overwhelming trust towards the girl could not anchor him to her a moment longer. He couldn't bring himself to care about Kairi's confused cries behind him, suddenly. He couldn't bring himself to care about an abrupt little jolt of pain that raced up his leg as he landed awkwardly during his mad sprint down the flights of stairs.

_No time for the elevator, no time, no time..._

He was dimly aware of the sound of the door behind him, the sound of footsteps racing after him. He was sure that they were Kairi's, and it was that very certainty that drove him onward, giving him a second, third, and fourth wind, for Sora-

"Sora!"

...Sora had never really been big into exercise. In fact, he'd much preferred lazing around on the beach, under the sun, on the sand, smiling, grinning, soaking it all in. He pointlessly tried to recount all these facts to himself as he flew out of the apartment complex into the night, sandals grating across the rough concrete as Sora's panic level rose to an alarming and painful little climax all its own.

_Taxi! There's no taxi!_

"Sora, what on earth-!"

That was it. He was finished. Why oh _why_ had he thought that Kairi could make it better? What on earth had driven him to her, of all people, to help him with this one particular problem? They were questions he didn't have to ask himself. He wasn't about to deny it. Kairi was a crutch. A supporting, stable, loving crutch, but a crutch all the same. With that thought, he had an image of himself in his minds eye, old and emfeebled, charging down a hallway leading nowhere, hobbling madly, determined to overcome some sort of crippling condition or other. Was that really what she was? Was that really who Sora was?

_My brain is screwing with me again…_

"Sora..." She was out of breath. She reached for his arm but he jerked away suddenly, swiftly, like a puppy once kicked and now about to be kicked again, reeling back before a blow that wouldn't come. She shot him a puzzled, hurt look. He didn't shoot her any look, his eyes rooted to the ground.

Both stood there in the quiet dark of the small city. Both were now very aware that something was wrong. But only one of them knew what exactly it was. Only _one_ of them knew what was about to happen next and only one of them knew where it would go from there.

"Kairi... I don't think... I think..." As Sora fumbled for his words, Kairi drew her bathrobe closer around her body, slow, painful realization beginning to dawn on her. _Oh dear_, her face seemed to say. _It's __**Sora**__ and he's __**thinking**__. This can only mean..._

"I think we need to see other people!"

And yet neither Sora nor Kairi could tell if the exclamation was really an exclamation or not. In all honesty, it sounded like a yelp in the silence all around them, a kick in the pants of curfew and anything like it. And in all honesty, it was nothing but the sound of Kairi's heart being stabbed with a knife. Just once. It was a very neat, clean job and no one could have expected Sora, of all people, to do a nicer duty than what he did for her right then. But it was undoubtedly that sound, that very sound of a blade cutting through so much love—years of love and devotion and hope.

"_What?_" she managed to choke out.

"I think I'm in love with Riku," he said.

"_**What?**_" she repeated.

_Yes_, he thought, seeing the headlights of a taxi appearing just around the bend.

_No_, she thought, seeing the same and realizing the same, but desperately, desperately wanting things to be so different.

"It was just a **dream**, Sora, you can't really tell me you're just going to-"

"Yeah. It _was_ a dream. But... I think I have to. Okay?"

There were times when Sora could be outrageously mature. These times were few, rare, and unexpected, often popping up in the moments in which many people believed he would've been far better off acting in his usual childish manner. But as Sora flagged the taxi down, Kairi could not manage to come to a clean decision one way or another. And in the end, all she felt was a blinding pain, dully throbbing somewhere behind her ribcage, yes, somewhere in that mass of guts that makes up the human body.

But her pain was not of the sort that comes from a dizzy spell, a rush of blood, a tipsy stomach. In fact, the root of her pain wasn't even a physical thing, not that it really mattered all that much in the end.

For as Sora looked back once, and only once, Kairi could tell that something was on the brink of change. There was some landmark point in their lives which they were rapidly approaching and Kairi wanted nothing more than to bring the whole ridiculous business to a sudden halt and be done with it. And be happy with her Sora.

"Sora! I-"

But Sora shook his head.

Kairi fell silent. The door slammed shut. And all was lost as the cab rolled down the road in the middle of the night.

And not knowing what else to do, Kairi began to cry.

x x x

It was a well-known fact that Riku had two loves in his life. The first love was that of boys. Everybody who was anybody knew Riku and if you knew Riku, you knew which way he swung on the metaphorical swing set. He enjoyed watching boys, he enjoyed talking to boys, and he enjoyed kissing boys. As a regular rule, he was not a fan of the 'female race.' Kairi was the only exception to that rule. Kairi somehow managed to be the only exception to _many_ rules, and this would only help to fuel the poor girl's frustration later on.

But Riku's second love, the love less well-known... That was something entirely different.

Riku loved cars. Now don't be mistaken. He would never be caught dead splurging left and right in a car dealership, used or otherwise. He only owned one car and though he treated the little thing as if it were his own precious mutant child of sorts, it was not enough to quench his craving for cars. So what did Riku do?

"_See that car, Sora?"_

_The two stood side by side, huddled behind a neat little hedge separating Riku's front yard from that of his neighbor's. Sora... was slightly puzzled._

"_Um. Yeah, Riku. It's a car."_

"_It's a __**new**__ car."_

"_Yeah, it's their new car, Riku, okay," Sora said, unable to keep a little note of annoyance from wheedling its merry way into his voice. "But seriously, Riku, I came here to talk to you about something impor-" He cut himself off as he slowly began to realize that Riku was paying absolutely no attention to him. In fact, the other man was practically drooling over the hedge they stood behind, watching the car with sheer adoration scrawled all over his gorgeous face in black and white letters._

_Sora drew his bottom lip out into a stubborn pout, clearly being ignored as Riku ogled the shiny little silver thing. A convertible, of course. Riku knew he would look great in that car and he wasted absolutely no time in letting Sora know so too._

"_I __**have**__ to drive that car, Sora. __**So**__ bad. So bad you have no fucking idea," Riku whispered._

"_Uh huh. Yeah, great, Riku. Why don't you just go steal it?"_

"_...I can't. It's daylight."_

"_**Riku**__!"_

"_Kidding, only kidding!" Riku laughed lightheartedly and clapped Sora on the back, accidentally sending his dear old friend slamming into the hedge face first, leaving Sora to be rewarded with a mouthful of prickly little leaves and another string of Riku's laughter as he fell to the grass, clutching his sides and attempting to apologize profusely._

"_Man, Sora, sorry! Hehehe...! I thought... hehe... you'd catch your- hehehe!"_

"_Cut it out, Riku!"_

_Finally, something clicked in Riku's brain. "Sora...?"_

And that was roughly how Sora came to be seated where he was. The back seat of a bus on a route that went nowhere in particular. He didn't care. It was crowded and he was next to invisible, just as he wanted to be.

"_Sora... I... Listen, I'm really, really flattered that you-"_

"_**Flattered?**__ You're __**flattered?**__"_

"_Well, Sora, I thought you already knew."_

"_Knew what?"_

"_About Leon."_

"_...Leon?"_

And Sora still couldn't believe it. Suddenly he was aware of what he'd done to Kairi the previous night, and though he certainly felt considerably guiltier than he had before, he still managed to find some scrap of truth behind his reasoning. _I couldn't keep leading her on like. _But that didn't keep a certain fifty kilo weight of guilt, stress, and self-pity from falling on his head and squishing poor Sora to the plastic coated seat of a noisy local bus line.

He fell into that state again. The state he'd found himself in a lot lately. That state of being there and yet being somewhere completely and totally different. Somewhere out beyond the glass window of the bus, far past the horizon framed within it, even. Sora acknowledged the new presence of a man who moved to sit beside him, the bus having pulled to the side of the road to pick up another stop's worth of passengers. Though the thought was tempting, Sora couldn't very well see himself snapping at the newcomer to go away, to sit somewhere else, to let a defeated boy-man wallow in his own misery for a while. No, ever so complacent, Sora pulled his body closer to the window, pulled his annoyance inside when the man sad closer than he would've liked and kept quiet and very much to himself.

The noise level increased as Sora's spirits decreased. A regular science experiment, alright. Sora figured he could whore his problems and data off in some middle school science fair and win a scholarship to go to college. ...Again.

The knee bumped into his and the voice reached his ears. "Sorry," it said. Sora shrugged it off, pressing himself against the window even further and into the cool metal wall of the bus. It was comforting, in some strange sort of abstract way in which only metal could be. Maybe it was the fact that Sora could press his fingertips against it and feel- and **know**- that it was solid beneath his hands and that there was nothing he could do to break or bend it.

His sad little musings were interrupted by a soft tap on his shoulder. Sora scowled, something he rarely did, complacency broken and rolling around on the bus floor, clattering and bouncing around the ankles of elderly women whose faces were turned to the ceiling, mouths open in a snore, and Sora turned to face the jackass beside him, ready to tell the bastard off and go back to sulking. ...Only he was surprised to find that...

He couldn't say a thing.

Who could _possibly_ stay angry at such a pair of blue eyes that looked so genuinely concerned?

"Hey… you okay, kid?" the man asked. He was dressed in a light blue collared shirt, the top button undone and his tie loosened, a neat sport coat draped over his lap along with a smooth leather briefcase—brown and clean, and yet slightly worn. For some reason, Sora found the raw corners of the case ridiculously endearing, and he had to catch himself from saying so aloud. Yet the thing that truly caught Sora's eyes was the little mp3 player and the bitty black earphones popped into the guy's head- clearly not a dyed-in-the-wool professional, not going along with the whole business ensemble, but _clearly_ fitting right in with the spiked blonde hair and those intense blue eyes.

Sora, if asked, would have summed up the man in three words. _GQ meets rock n' roll_. 'Rock n' roll' was one word for Sora. ...In case you hadn't figured that out.

The man smiled, though it seemed a bit stressed and puzzled, clearly wondering at Sora's mute nature. Maybe the kid actually _was_ mute. That would be troubling, if only because the man would feel like an inconsiderate bastard for no real, concrete reason other than his obliviousness to the handicaps of others. A few awkward moments passed between the two and the man glanced around the bus, tapped a finger slow and steady against the tiny gadget in his hands, tapped his foot against the leg of the bench in front of them... Finally he said, "Forget it. Sorry about that. You know. It's really none of my business if-"

"It's okay!" Sora quickly interjected, falling silent again and blinking up at the older man with almost unnaturally large eyes. They could've rolled out his eyes and it probably would have taken him a few good seconds to realize it. And still, the expression must have struck the other as amusing, for the blonde laughed cheerfully and pull his headphones off. He curled the cord of one around the tapping finger of his—his left index—and surveyed Sora with a practiced ease, an almost invisible shadow of a smile still tugging pleasantly at the corner of his mouth and an amused look still firmly embedded somewhere within his gaze.

"It's Bob Dylan," he said quietly, obviously speaking of the strained trail of a tune coming through the earpiece he held. "You ever listen to him?" he asked.

Sora shook his head no, innocently oblivious as the blonde man reached over and popped one of the earpieces in Sora's right ear, the one closest to him. Into his own left one he put the other piece before edging the volume up slightly and resuming his routine of foot-and-finger tapping, a lazy look of raw satisfaction on his face. It reminded Sora of a certain laid-back innocence and warmth he'd only felt one place before. It reminded Sora of the island of his childhood, the one from his dream and the setting of the entire downfall he found himself caught up in then. It was, after all, the island dream that had caused his split with Kairi and the new rift growing between Riku and him. And yet there it was, that pleased look— reminding Sora of the sun's rays that -if you were awake early enough and in _just_ the right spot- shone through the broad leaves of the island trees and fell upon the sand in gold ribbons.

'_Life is sad, life is a bust. All ya can do is do what you must. You do what you must do and ya do it well; I'll do it for you, honey baby, can't you tell?'_

Whether it was the words or the look on the man's own face, Sora soon found his own mouth being pulled and tugged upwards and outwards, a smile of his own, familiar and warm and blatant, spreading across his face. It felt good, after everything. After the dream, after Kairi. ...After Riku.

"_Listen, Sora, I didn't know you-... I'm sorry. Really. I thought you knew, man."_

"_How was I supposed to know?"_

"_...How were you __**not**__ supposed to know?"_

"_I thought he was just... I thought he...!"_

"_...What, you thought he was just my __**fuck buddy**__ or something?"_

Sora's smile was gone again and the other man was looking at him again, curious as ever, though his attitude was now laced with a more bold and daring sort of attitude. Now that he'd come to the conclusion that the boy beside him wasn't a deaf _or_ a mute and he wasn't swimming through waters of inconsiderate shitheadedness. Which wasn't a proper word or description, but was the closest the man could come to describing the situation in his head. Maybe the thought bubbled up and out through the earpiece, down the cord and out through the other, into Sora's ear. Sora quickly became aware of the man's gaze fixed on him, and looked up.

"What's your name?" the man asked.

"Sora," he said.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

The blonde's eyes widened considerably and Sora felt his mouth prickling into a downward frown once more, though the action only managed to make the other let out a deep and easy chuckle. Okay, so maybe Sora didn't exactly look his age, he figured. Or often act it, either. But, in his own defence, it was one thing to privately think that—thinking never did much of anything for or to anyone—but it was _another_ thing to just make a big damn joke about it. Especially on that day, of all days. The one day Sora didn't feel like joking around—couldn't possibly feel like joking around.

"Really now…" the man said. At least he wasn't laughing at Sora anymore. At least he was being genuine. "I've never sat next to anyone more down than me on this bus, you know?" The man leaned back into the seat, or at least, as far back as one could possibly manage to lean into industrial strength foam padding. He clasped his slender hands over his briefcase, left index finger once more drumming against the back of his right hand, the mp3 player clasped between the two of them like a sacred emblem. _Bob Dylan probably has a cult following or something_, Sora thought to himself. _ And I wouldn't really be all that surprised if this guy was a part of it._

Now _that_ was a thought to entertain.

The man turned his attention away from his music and towards Sora again. "You're not offended, are you?" Sora shook his head no. The man seemed to be put back at ease. He nodded a bit, lowered his eyelids and studied Sora in a way that probably should have been impolite, but really didn't seem all that bad at all. The man said, "It just doesn't seem to suit you. That's all I meant by it… I mean... when you smile? Fits you much better."

"Oh yeah, like _you'd _know," Sora drawled back, partially surprised by how much he sounded like a hormone-crazed teenager, drugged up on rebellion and angst, angst, angst.

"I don't say it about everyone…"

Sora was again surprised, though this time it was by that all-too-familiar feeling of blood creeping up towards his face, slowly but surely darkening the shade of pink that was splashed across his cheeks. Was that some kind of shyness the guy had just shown? Should Sora revel in the attention lavished on him by some total stranger, or just be completely creeped out by an attractive, older man seeming to make a pass at him on the bus line? As Sora struggled with this little inner debate of his, he continued to blush stupidly, childishly… profusely. If the other man noticed, he said nothing, simply settling for closing his eyes and getting lost in the gravelly voice of some ancient old someone that most of the inhabitants of that world had long since forgotten.

"Well. You're not exactly all grins and smiles either, you know?" Sora could've punched himself in the face for saying it, because he could have—should have—just kept his ridiculous mouth shut until he'd come up with something meaningful and gratifying to actually say. _Crap_.

But once more, to Sora's _everlasting_ surprise, the man took it all in stride. "See this whole crappy costume I decked out in?" he asked. Without opening his eyes, the man flicked his hand, one finger extended, gesturing towards the collared shirt and professional attire, almost with something similar to disdain. "It took half of my first paycheck to pay for it. And I have seven of them. One for each day of the week. Do you know how many paychecks that is?"

"...So why do you buy them?" asked Sora, who clearly had no idea as to where the hell the conversation was going.

"Because," he said. "I was told I had to. And as a general rule, I make a pretty religious habit of doing what I'm told."

"Why?"

"...Not sure. What about you?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"Do you always do what you're told?"

"...I dunno."

They returned to sitting in silence and Sora returned to looking out the window, the sounds of old Dylan still filtering in through one ear. It made the view not so depressing, but that may just have been because he then had something anchoring him to the bus. It was thin, metallic, and wrapped in plastic; one neat little black cord connecting one earpiece to the other, as well as their respective male holders. Sora smiled at the thought. And perhaps it was that realization or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps it was Sora's small sliver of hope and faith that he was standing on the brink of something new and important. Whatever it was, the dream, the depression, the music, the voice, Sora turned to the other man and said, "It's about my girlfriend."

The man made no motion other than sliding one eye open in a lazy manner to study the boy beside him. He blinked once and then gave a very slight nod, motioning for Sora to continue.

"See... I broke up with her because I kept having this dream. And I mean... I went to her one night—just the other night, I mean—because I figured she would know where to go to find out what it meant and everything. She's... pretty smart like that. And she doesn't get mad whenever I randomly show up or anything. But all her help… all it did was point out that I had this crush on my best friend- this huge, _massive_ crush. And... well... I sorta ended up getting terrified, because I'd thought that for a while. I just didn't know if—if I was just being weird or something."

"Did you actually love him, though?"

"Yeah, I guess, I mean I- ...Uh..." Sora blinked rapidly, suddenly having been struck upside the head with the hand of absolute shock. "...How'd you know I was talking about a guy?"

"It was a guess." The man shrugged a little, his eyes falling closed once more as he said, "Don't let me stop you. Go on."

Sora gulped and glanced around, scratching the base of his neck with a fidgeting hand. What was up with him lately? He just couldn't seem to stay still or concentrate on much of anything. ...Except for stupid dreams that only ended up getting him royally screwed in the end.

"There's not much else to tell. I mean... He's already with someone and got totally defensive when I actually seemed surprised. ...I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but what they had... I... well... I dunno. It just never struck me as a relationship or anything. I mean, it almost seemed kinda they were just... um..."

"Fuck buddies?" the man provided. It looked like he wanted to laugh again, but Sora was grateful when he didn't. Sora nodded slowly, stupidly, and somehow... _cutely_.

If that made any sense.

Through his covered eyes, Sora didn't catch the head-tilt, the small, sweet trace of a smile, the hint of a look of adoration that had suddenly sparked. And by the time he'd removed his hands, a pout carefully crafted onto his tan little face, the look was gone. It was replaced by nothing more than that cautious manner that all adults wear when trying to guide a small child to the right decision. Somehow it bothered Sora, forcing his eyebrows further together, his bottom lip further out. The man laughed. Sora stopped pouting. He giggled instead, the two sitting side by side as the bus slowed to a halt. Outside the window, framed neatly within the smooth metallic skeleton of the bus, the sun was beginning its steady descent to the ground. Sora knew it would never reach it. The man beside him knew it would never reach it.

And it was universally accepted truth that the sun just didn't give half a rat's ass. It was going to keep trying, dammit, even if the rest of the solar system had it out for him in the end. The ground was a reachable goal because the sun was the sun and all things in the sun's galaxy properly revolved around it. Unbeknownst to the sun, that was the precise reason the ground was perfectly unattainable. A long, complex process. All that truly mattered was that one fact—all you need to get out of it was that one fact.

Because all things revolve around the sun, the sun can never get what it most desires.

Sora grinned happily at this thought. He felt so deep. He felt so insightful. Maybe it meant something. Maybe, like the dream, it was trying to tell him something- this crazy subconscious of his. But maybe it wasn't through analyzing the thought that he'd reach the answer. _Maybe it's just through... Hmm. Maybe it's like that domino effect. Kinda like... that dream was only the beginning. And it's leading up to all these other things. One after other, each depending on the other in order to happen... or... something..._

_Maybe they're important_, Sora thought. Sora hoped. He needed something important then.

Sora looked up as the man beside him gathered his things together, clearly preparing to get off at this stop, of all stops, just when Sora had had this brilliant revelation of his. If he didn't share it with this total stranger, just who the hell was he supposed to share it with?

And almost as though he'd read his mind, the man grinned. An actual, full-fledged _grin_. Sora didn't know why, but he had this gut feeling that he should feel honored somehow, priviledged to receive it. The man then—he pulled a pen from his pocket, he reached for Sora's arm. Across the back of his wrist he neatly jotted down a series of numbers, still smiling and saying, "Alrighty. Here's what we're going to do..."

He was so strangely gentle.

x x x

"_Here's my number. I want for you to call me, okay? I'll be expecting it when I __**least**__ expect it. Surprise me. I could use the surprise and… I'm guessing you could use one, too. …Just don't forget…"_

But one thing the man didn't know was that Sora was, at the very end of every day, still Sora, and in being Sora, Sora _did_ forget. And he didn't remember until almost a week later when he discovered the faint, smudgy imprint of a backwards phone number, right there on the very last seat of the bus.

_...Crap._

And so it was that the first domino was tipped. But it was only the first of many.

(x) (x) (x)

Ehehe. Quoshoopy, Chapter One, version 2.0. Fixed Cloud's character so he's not a total idiot. Also fixed mild typos, added to and made slight improvements where the writing was too crappy to stand. Over and out.


	2. Familiarish

**Quoshoopy**

'Familiarish'

"Aw, you don't really wanna go into _that_ crap, do you?"

"Well... yanno, I'm okay with it as long as Selph is there and all."

Two AM and the local weather station was on its ten minute break. 'Your Local Weather on the Eights' only came on every ten minutes, obviously, so many figured that they had it pretty easy. With both legs slung over the sides of a collapsible metal chair, each employee seemed riveted to the bleachy-blonde and blue haired man in the center of the room.

Charismatic and outgoing as all hell, Tidus had long been a favorite of nearly everyone involved in the Traverse City weather department. Even the meteorologists loved him, and as everyone knows, it's very difficult to please a meteorologist.

That early morning hour of the dead, it was all about Tidus. For Tidus was finally leaving.

"I still don't get it man. Every damn guy always leaves for some girl. Every damn one! First it was Seifer, then it was ole Wakka... Now you, man."

"Hey, don't look so down! You even got a big ass cake out of it, so cheer up already!"

Across the room and tucked in a corner sat Cloud Strife. He seemed every bit the quiet and crowd-wary individual, so almost everyone left him alone. Tidus had been friendly at first upon his arrival, of course, but quickly gave up after discovering that no warm response would ever come from the cold and silent guy who handled the stressful job of being the local station's weather reporter.

Which was strange in itself. That had Cloud talking for a minute and a half every ten minutes, and other than that he was nearly dead silent while working.

He had regarded Tidus that evening --when the fragmented little goodbye party began-- with the same indifference with which he always did. He'd chipped in with the rest of the workers to form the two hundred dollar pot given to Tidus as a farewell gift. He'd nodded his head once and said a simple, "Good luck" on his way into the lounge that evening.

But since then, Cloud had not spoken a word.

And for the rest of his shift, he still planned on saying nothing else aside from what he was paid to say.

His mind was far away, back somewhere in the fog of frequent memories. He was thinking, oddly enough, about that weird little brown-haired boy he'd met on the bus a week ago.

_Was it a week ago,_ he wondered slowly. _Feels like just a few days ago. But he hasn't called me, has he? ...Not that I thought he would..._

Through the neatly pressed fabric of his black slacks, Cloud could feel his trusty mp3 player pressed against his leg and he thought back once again to his old playlist. His old music. ...Their headphones and the one of which had been in...

_Sora. Right._

Sora's ear.

_What'd ever happened to that kid anyway...?_

'_I need your lovin' like the sunshine and everybody's gotta learn sometime'..._, Cloud thought abstractedly. What'd ever _happened_ to that damn kid...?

x x x

Sora was outside of the tiny, grubby little house he lived in, buried somewhere in the back, fenced in and secluded area. He kneeled in the dirt and huffed and puffed, both hands wrapped around the thick neck of one of the many weeds cluttering up the backyard.

He was infuriated.

Never before in his entire life had he been depressed. He'd always had his Kairi, he'd always had his Riku. He'd always had their old trio to fall back on and he'd always believed they were inseparable. But shock of all shocks- there he was. Alone. For the first time in his life.

And man did he hate it.

"Stupid... _weed_!" Sora grunted as he tugged once again at the thick thing stuck in his yard, a regular jungle in itself of overgrown plants and trees. The branches hung too low, the weeds grew too wide, and the flowers bloomed too rarely. In fact, most of his backyard was moss. There were only a few clumps of grass scattered here and there.

But in the mid-October afternoon, falling leaves did nothing to better the yard's condition.

His knees sank into the black soil as he whined in frustration, heaving mightily, chapping his hands and feeling the burn on his palms... right before he flew across the tiny lawn with a yelp and slammed into the fence. And all Sora had to show for his painful work was a handful of shredded leaves and a bald stem sticking up from the ground like some sick antennae of some underground alien.

Eww.

Sora sniffled. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. He whined and pounded the shredded leaves into the dirt floor, he whacked his head back against the fencepost and he hated himself for nearly crying.

And he didn't notice the other man's presence until the voice reached his ears.

"You're doing it all wrong," the voice said.

"Oh yeah! And just who the heck are-" Eyes now open, Sora's words died on his tongue as he stared in shock at the blonde man standing over him. Well-dressed, black slacks, polished shoes, and a red button up shirt, black sports-coat slung over his shoulder. It could only really be one person after all. "Yagh! _You_!" Sora exclaimed.

"Yep. The one and only."

It was the man from the bus, of course. Standing there in Sora's backyard, smiling warmly and just as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to show up there out of the blue like that. Sora instantly found himself absolutely terrified- not of the man himself, exactly, but of the fact that he'd never called him. Of the fact that Sora was capable of being such an idiot.

Of the fact that he was capable of finding the number once again, writing it down, and still refusing to do nothing about it. _He wouldn't even remember me... He wouldn't want to talk to me... I wouldn't know what to say..._ Sora had thought up all these excuses and more just not to talk to the guy. But clearly he was proven wrong.

Sure enough. There he was. The curious blonde, standing in his backyard.

"Haaaah... What're you doing here?" Sora asked lamely, blinking owlishly up at the man and laughing nervously.

"Well I just happened to be in the neighborhood, walking around, and all of a sudden I see some kid flying around out of the corner of my eye." Despite Sora's angry interjection -"I'm _not_ a kid!"-, the man simply smirked and continued. "So of course I had to come see what happened. And son of a gun, it's the little weasel who stood up my phone call."

The man grinned widely, showing off a set of pearly white teeth hidden behind the soft pink hue of his lips. Combined with the brilliant blue eyes and cornflower hair, Sora was easily floored for several moments as he stared in shock.

"Ah..." Sora focused determinedly on the ground, willing himself not to stutter and make even more of an idiot of himself as he quietly and slowly said, "...Wow, you must really hate me for that, huh?"

"Not at all." The man smiled and leaned down, hands on his knees, amusement in his eyes as he said, "But what I **do** hate you for is killing all these plants."

"They're weeds!" Sora yelled, waving a fistful of green shrubbery around wildly.

The man sighed exasperatedly and flung his coat off to the side, over the fence, one hand clapped to his forehead, one at rest on his hip. The dramatic pose was completed as he said, "_Clearly_ you know absolutely _nothing_ about gardening."

"Oh yeah, like _you'd _know anything about it." Sora pouted furiously and crossed his arms, still leaning sulkily against the worn old fence. He was surprised to find that the man wasn't at all put-off by Sora's childish little antics that usually annoyed people away like magic. In fact, if anything, it only seemed to amuse him more and more.

As though to prove this point the man chuckled softly and cocked his head to the side. He looked around the yard slowly, taking in its tattered state, his eyes drawn to the little red house that sat plopped amidst it all. He had an air of being perfectly confident, perfectly content, and perfectly perfect at anything and everything he did.

And so Sora wasn't the least bit surprised when he said, "Actually I do know a thing or two about it. An old friend of mine used to garden, you know. It was practically her only passion in life." His voice had grown quiet and the yard grew still. Sora stared on silently and almost skittishly, watching as the man unbuttoned the cuffs and rolled of the sleeves of his red shirt.

He crouched down before the heap of evil plants that Sora had been fighting all afternoon and inspected them with his fingertips, lifting leaves and peering underneath and over. Finally he blinked at looked over at Sora.

"You've been pulling out flowers, Sora."

_He remembered my name!_ Sora thought delightedly. But he quickly smothered the delight with a considerable amount of effort and shrugged, saying, "They looked like weeds to me."

"Well, some of them are. But all you've been pulling here are flowers that just aren't in bloom. You _do_ know flowers don't bloom in autumn, right?"

"If you want 'em so bad, why not just take 'em yourself and make your _own_ garden," Sora replied rather moodily, still pouting and still feeling the pain from his little bonding time with the fence.

"Not a bad idea. But these are yours. And you could use them, it looks like."

"Oh for crying out loud, if you're just gonna show up and-"

"Add a 'c.'"

"...Huh?"

"A 'c.' Add a 'c' to 'loud.'"

"...Uh... Cloud?"

"Perfect."

"What is?"

"My name."

"Oh. ...What's your name?"

The man groaned and rolled his eyes. "_Cloud_."

"Ohhh! _I_ get it now!" Both of them exchanged looks and both of them burst into laughter, Sora's loud and vibrant, Cloud's more of a deep and soft chuckle. And that was all it took.

Sora leapt to his feet and bounded over towards Cloud, extending his hand cheerfully, sticking the other the pocket of his grubby jeans and he grinned brilliantly. "Well," he said, "looks like we're finally properly introduced then, huh, Cloud?"

The other surveyed Sora's hand quizzically for a moment, almost as thought he wasn't entirely sure what to make of it or what to do in response. After that moment though, Cloud smiled and clapped his hand against Sora's, the two of them shaking warmly as Cloud said, "Yeah, I guess so."

"You really know stuff about gardening then?"

"Some," Cloud said. Both of them turned to look at the deranged mess of Sora's wreck of a yard. Sora sighed. Cloud shrugged.

Sora glanced at the man's hands, he grinned and jokingly prodded Cloud's arm. "You don't have a green thumb. How do I know I can trust you with my precious garden?"

"How can you _not_ trust me with this thing? Looks like I'm all you've got."

"Hey!"

With that, Cloud laughed a little and gave a determined nod as he said, "Alright, Sora. Here's what we'll do. I tell you what to pull out and you pull it out. Got it?" With the look Sora gave him, Cloud could only smirk and hold his hands outwards in a helpless gesture. "I'd do it myself, but I'm in my work clothes and all."

"Well _we_ sure are bossy, aren't we?"

"You know it. Now then. Start over there with that crazy vine thing crawling up the side of your house."

"...There's a prickly bush in the way. I'm not going back there."

"Oh yes you are. If that vine keeps growing, it'll cover your whole house and tear it apart, bit by bit. You'll end up with your roof around your ears and your fists in your hair, screaming like a goddamn girl."

Needless to say, Sora gave into that little statement of fact. (Well, it was more or less a statement of fact. It wasn't entirely true, yet it wasn't entirely a lie either, for if Sora's house really did fall down, he truly would scream like a little girl.) Cloud promised he'd be back in jeans and a t-shirt as he disappeared moments later, having given Sora a long and drawn-out list of plants that needed killing in his absence.

When Cloud returned, he found Sora sprawled on his back beneath the shade of a huge scraggly old tree, fast asleep without a care in the world. Hands on his hips, Cloud drew closer, a wary look on his face as he silently and frantically searched for any signs that Sora was breathing.

"...Haaaahhh..." Sora sighed quietly. He squirmed on his back, he smiled to himself. The leaves, the sunlight, and the occasional hair-rustling breeze were the only disturbances as Cloud squatted down beside Sora and peered curiously at the sleeping boy.

"Sora?" he whispered.

"Mmmffglefraggm."

A slow and easygoing grin spread across Cloud's movie-star face as he said, "Are you dreaming, kid?"

It's said that when people are asleep, you can ask them things. Supposedly they'll tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them... Well, you get it. Cloud didn't know if you had to put the sleeping fellow under hypnosis first or what, but for a lazy Sora slacking off of the job, he was willing to risk it.

And sure enough, it paid off.

"Mmmffggyeeaa-p." The 'p' came as a pop, finished with Sora smiling slyly in his sleep and licking his lips.

"And what are you dreaming about, Sora?"

"Mmmmfffgyeeeaaagh, you pervert!"

But sometimes things only pay half up front and then they leave town with the other half. Such was the case for Cloud as he went reeling backwards away from a rather playfully flailing Sora who was suddenly and startlingly wide awake.

"Listening in on what I'm thinking, huh?"

"No, of course not!"

"Yeah, yeah you were! Uh huh, you were!"

"I swear I wasn't." Cloud laughed, keeping the vengeful little Sora away with one hand as he fell back into a sitting position on the mossy ground. "...Actually, I thought you were quite dead."

"Dead!"

"But now I'm certainly not worried in the slightest. Now it's just very clear that you're lazy."

"I'm not lazy!"

"You're lazy."

"I'm _not_ lazy!"

"Ah, but you're right, I guess. You're not lazy, you're simply indolent."

Sora wrinkled his nose and blinked owlishly up at Cloud, who'd rested his defensive hand on top of the mass of spiky brown hair on Sora's head as the boy questioned, "...Indolent?"

"It means lazy."

"Dammit, I'm **not** lazy!"

"You're... nice... Sora," Cloud said with a little smile. The words came out slowly and almost sounded a bit foreign coming from him. He said it almost as an afterthought, as thought it should be said in the same manner as stating that it looked like the rain was letting up over across the sea in France. "Really."

"...Aww, uh, hey man, seriously, it's... ah..." Sora laughed nervously, flapping his hands around in little circles as he tried to brushed the compliment off before he could blush and look even more like a girl. Instead he said, "So hey, what's the best thing about me then, huh, huh?"

"...You have a very expressive face."

"...An expressive face."

"...Um. Yes."

"Well what the heck's _that_ supposed to mean!"

x x x

"So like, I was thinking that I really wanna focus on this part here," she said, lifting the hem of her pair of shorts, and jabbing at her suntanned flesh with one finger before trailing it down her leg and saying, "focusing less here, you know?"

"Yeah, you just wanna tan up here, right?" The other girl pressed her hand against Girl One's thigh, nodding like she understood and furrowing her brows like it was a deep and complex mathematical equation.

Kairi sat watching this interaction numbly, quite without any feeling whatsoever, much as she had been operating for the past week.

She sat primly, neatly and ever so perfectly, back perpendicular to the chair, the degree between her stomach and her knees a perfect ninety. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, her body was tucked back into a crisp white blouse and tan suede skirt, her hands held firmly yet gently at her sides, a pocketbook situated comfortably between one arm and her hip.

If the female body was indeed a mathematical equation, perhaps Kairi was carrying her own answers with her the entire time without knowing it. She was pulled back and harnessed into whatever was the ideal and perfect number, body, and form. The absolute zero of perfection and, if she had her two cents to put in, absolute hell.

"But like, I don't know how to do it."

"Do what?"

"You know. Like... not tan here, but up here."

"Just cover up the part you don't want tanned, duh! Use, like, a towel or something."

The bus pulled up and the two girls left, gibbering excitedly as they slung their backpacks over their shoulders. Kairi blinked. She cocked her head to the side. She'd been so sure it was October...

_Tanning in October? I don't get it..._

She stood up from the bench and slowly dusted off the back of her skirt, the bus was waiting patiently, but she smiled at the driver and shook her head. It pulled away without her and Kairi once again found herself... confused.

_It _is_ October, isn't it?_

There weren't any trees to tell her one way or another. No trees in this part of the city. Nothing but a cool, middle-of-the-road temperature that could mean anything. She stepped into the curb and urgently hailed the next taxi cab, sliding inside quickly as she said, "Could you swing by the park, please?"

"Sure thing!" the driver said cheerfully.

_Tanning in October and female taxi-drivers. What next?_ Kairi leaned back into her seat, her eyes dropping closed as she tried to keep herself floating somewhere above her thoughts. She was feeling disheveled. Lost. Completely obliterated since that one night. That one stupid night.

"...Don't take this the wrong way or anything, ma'm, but... haven't I seen you before somewhere?"

Kairi opened her eyes. She blinked slowly and regarded the driver in the rearview mirror. A fringe of black hair falling above brown eyes, which, at that moment, were regarding her own reflection as well, a puzzled expression mixed in with the warm color found there.

"...Nope. Sorry. Can't say you have." Kairi turned to look out the window, the movement sharp and robotic, no feeling in it.

Usually when you look out a window, you put some _feeling_ into it, you know?

"Are you sure, ma'm?"

"Yes. I am. And please stop calling me ma'm. I believe you're older than me."

"Sorry, ma'm. It's _formalities_. They pay me a huge assload of dough to do it."

"Well you don't have to do it for me. You'll still get paid the same."

"But if I broke the habit now, ma'm, I'd be screwed if, like, the _president_ or somebody got in here and I started calling him 'dude' or something. I mean, I'd totally lose my frickin' _job_, yanno?"

"Well how about if you make an exception this time?" Kairi gritted through her teeth.

"Oh _I_ know where I've seen you before! In a bathrobe! Last week and all. _You_ know. In the middle of the night you had some crazy guy show up, right? I knew it was you!"

"W-what?"

"Yeah, I was actually driving home after hauling some loser all the way across town. Like... **all** the way across. It was a royal pain in the ass, seriously. He in_sis_ted on going to the absolute edge of the stupid city limits and all- some _way _backroads kinda neck of the woods, you know? Then _that_ kid practically attacked my cab when I was on my way home, begged me to drive him out somewhere and wait for him. Promised he wouldn't be long..."

They'd been puttering along through the city traffic and the driver paused her speech to turn around and shoot Kairi a chipper little grin, saying, "That _was_ you, wasn't it?"

"...Um. It might have been, if the boy you were driving was my old boyfriend. He broke up with me that evening."

"...Oh. Hey, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to like, drudge up nasty old memories or whatever, ma'm."

"You can probably stop with the ma'm now, don't you think? You're not very polite anyway," Kairi said quietly and quite mechanically. The driver went silent and turned back around, a small frown riddling her face as she tried to focus on driving again, just as Kairi tried to focus on what was outside her window.

_Who does she think she is, butting into other people's business like that! 'Oh, the first time I saw you, you were in a bathrobe! Teehee!' Brat._ But then it was Kairi's turn to frown. _Maybe I'm being too hard on her. ...Maybe I'm being too hard on... Oh, no I'm not! This is stupid. I've got to stop talking to myself. I think I'm going crazy. I **feel** like I'm going crazy..._

Some time later, the cab came to a halt by the park. The trees stood as they always did in October, leaves turning a healthy mix of red and gold, setting fire to the city in the most harmless way possible. They'd soaked up the sun all summer long and now appeared burnt and dying from it. Always wear sunscreen, kiddies.

Kairi allowed herself a small smile, feeling reassured and a bit more stable than she had in quite a while.

Overhead a flock of geese flew low to the ground, the black and white V etched into the sky like a stubborn seasonal tattoo of some sort, heralding the coming of winter.

"Thank you. I think can walk from here." She stretched out her hand to pay the sulky girl who sat in the driver's seat.

"That'll be ten eighty- wha? HEY! Get _back_ here! You can't just-!"

But Kairi was already gone.

And the girl was pleasantly surprised to find that Kairi had overpaid her by fifty dollars.

"...Stupid rich girl..."

x x x

"...So... why do you listen to Bob Dylan anyway? I mean, he's so... old. Not that it's bad or anything. And uh..." Sora trailed off, laughing nervously and suddenly staring very intently at the steaming pool of tea in his mug.

The two had been working in Sora's backyard all afternoon, until the sun disappeared and autumn reared its pretty little multi-colored head and doused them in cool evening breezes that sent shivers down their spines. Sora's solution had originally involved cocoa, but he'd only soon realized that he'd polished off the rest of his cocoa several days earlier, during one of his little depressed mood swings.

...Yes, the cocoa was gone. As was most of the food in his house. Except for the herbal teas, of course.

But as Sora was pulled back to the here and now (or the then and there, if you will), he studied the man across from him as Cloud gave him a small understanding smile, blue eyes almost glowing in the dim kitchen light as the two sat opposite of one another at an old card table.

Cloud spoke and Sora listened. It felt like a well-practiced ritual and it felt advisable. For Sora, it felt monumental somehow, though he didn't yet know why.

"It's because he's different. The man's a genius." "How many people do you know who listen to Dylan?"

"Well... you. And..." Sora paused, his brow furrowed in concentration. Finally his smiled and shrugged his shoulders aimlessly. "...Yep, that's about it. Just you."

"Exactly." Cloud tapped a finger against his chin for a moment, think and murmuring, "Tom Waits..."

"Teh wheh?"

"Tom Waits. I listen to him too."

"...Er, does he sound like Mr. Dylan?"

Cloud nearly laughed out loud at Sora's calling old Dylan 'Mr. Dylan.' Instead he took a swig from the mug in front of him, composed himself as best he could, and said, "Sort of. Bit of a deeper voice though..." He hummed a few notes and Sora understood what he meant, the sound coming out being significantly lower than Cloud's normal voice.

"Have you ever heard of _Waltzing Matilda_?" Cloud asked.

"No, is it a song of his?"

"Mmhm." Cloud hummed a few more notes. He shook his head. For half a second, Sora was sure he'd caught a trace of sadness behind Cloud's eyes. But it was gone in the next half second, replaced by nothing but a brick wall. Nothing but the words: "It's really...good."

"I'd like to hear it sometime," Sora said quietly. Brightening up a bit, he leaned forward, a giddy little grin on his face as he chirped, "Heeey, you know so much about all these old music singers and everything. So are you like, some sort of singer or something?"

"Hah! I wish!" Sora waited expectantly, his gaze clearly saying something along the lines of, _Okay, if you're no singer, what the hell are you, man?_ Cloud blinked. "You mean you really don't know who I am?"

"...Erp, um... Your name's Cloud, isn't it?"

"Come on, you can't be serious! Don't you ever look on TV?"

"You're a movie star?"

"...Uh. Knock that down a couple notches."

"...You're a _B_-Movie star!"

"No." Cloud cleared his throat and set his mug on the table ceremoniously before flinging out one arm to the side and gesturing to the invisible map that may once have been behind him. "'And we can all expect some pretty heavy rain as this storm front pulls into Traverse City late in the afternoon today, so if you've got some cocoa and a good stack of CDs or magazines, today would be the day to break those out.'"

Arm falling back to his side, Cloud stared at Sora's puzzled little expression with shock. "...Seriously, doesn't it ring a bell or anything?"

"...Sorry, it doesn't really... But I don't watch that much TV."

"You don't?"

"Not really. I'm usually, uh... busy?"

"Screwing your ex girlfriend?" Cloud smirked. It had a trace of bitterness that might have made Sora wonder. But Sora didn't see it. He was staring into his mug again, quiet and pensive, a mix strangely alien to him. Cloud picked up on it and tried to apologize as best as he knew how. "...Sorry, man. I... didn't know it was still a sore spot."

"It shouldn't be... I just kinda... left her hanging. She used to go on and on about how TV rotted your brain and all. That's why I stopped watching." Sora cleared his throat. He lifted his mug to his mouth and pretended to take a sip, but he didn't dare actually do so. He couldn't even feel the rest of his throat past the lump wedged in there.

_What's wrong with me..?_

"I see."

"But what is it you do?"

"I'm a weatherman."

"Really? That's pretty cool."

"...You're probably the only person on the face of the earth who would actually say that." Cloud tried to smile again, but the action felt dead. He didn't know why, but he desperately wanted Sora to like being around him. Hell, he wanted Sora to like him period.

There was something he could neither describe nor exactly put his finger on. There was something so startlingly amazing about Sora that it made Cloud want to slice his chest open and bear his heart to the kid, black and bitter as it was.

He wanted to do so and see Sora do the same. He wanted to bask in purity of the other boy's own heart and relish how _Sora_ it was.

The two were quiet for a moment.

"...I never had sex with her," Sora said a little softly, burying his face in his mug as he practically tried to drown himself with tea.

"I'm sorry about that."

"What, about not me having sex with her?"

"Uh, n-no, about bringing it up."

"It's okay. I'm fine now. But I guess I came off as a bit of a manic depressive when you ran into me on the bus, huh? I mean, super emo or whatever. I'm not though, seriously!" More nervous laughter. Sora started stirring the remnants of his tea like crazy, spoon clattering noisily against the side of the mug.

"It's okay if you are."

"But I'm not."

"That's okay too."

It should have been awkward. And perhaps it was. But by the time Sora had finished his mug of tea, he found himself glancing at the man across from him in an entirely different way. He wasn't some beatnik out to hug trees, no new Jack Kerouac. He walked somewhere on the lines and he'd trained himself to do so.

Sora found this almost painfully intriguing. And then he stood up and moved towards the counter to pour himself another mug of tea. He turned his head over his shoulder and offered Cloud a little smile of his own.

He wanted to think of something clever to say. Something very different. Something that was as unique as Cloud and just as deserving of his reception.

But all he could come up with was, "Want any more tea?"

(x) (x) (x)

Riku and Leon come in the next chapter, as well as more of the main pairing of Sora and Cloud. ...It figures that when I start having a ball writing Yuffie and Kairi together again, it has to be in a fic that doesn't center around them. Damn. But it's just so much fun, this scenario! Bwaaaaugh.


	3. Ze Insanitarium

**My Oh My**

'Ze Insanitarium'

10-15-05

_I just woke up from the weirdest dream I've ever had. Everything was sort of gray and empty... not really there. Just like it is when you're sleeping, right? And then I see myself just sort of floating on all this water. Okay, big deal. But the thing is that I was actually floating in my _kitchen sink

_ Weird, right? Just wait. _

_ So __Leon__ shows up because I'm just floating around like a loser and for some reason I can't move. Or I guess I can't move, because I definitely don't. And __Leon__'s just kind of floating in the water too, I guess, but it looks more like he's standing...? I don't know. _

_ Anyway, I remember that was when my dream sort of flipped and I was actually seeing stuff from the view of the 'me' in the sink. If that even makes any sense or whatever. And I see __Leon__ just sort of bobbing there and under, but then he just slips under. It's like he's not even fighting. So I go after him, but I get sucked down too then. Like someone pulled the plug of the sink drain or something. _

_ I remember it went on for a while after that, but it was pretty much all the same. It was pretty much just me watching __Leon__ be sucked underwater. And me following right behind. _

_ I hate dreams. ...Or nightmares. I never understood the difference. All my dreams feel like nightmares._

x x x

Kairi had the day off.

She had woken up that morning at ten, she had walked into her kitchenette at noon, and she finally made it to the sofa by two in the afternoon. The entire process was done slowly, deliberately, and almost painfully. But she had finally plunked herself down on the sofa and turned on the TV. It would be alright then. All she needed was her brain sucked out. She'd be just fine.

That was how Riku found her when he walked through the door at a quarter after three, for keys were insignificant things between best friends. But finding your best friend huddled under a tacky afghan with her face in a tub of Ben and Jerry's? That's just unnerving.

"Shit! Kairi! What the-?"

"Hello Riku," came the garbled response through a mouthful of chocolately looking ice cream.

Riku rushed further into the apartment, his keys clattering on the floor as he just stared at the scene around him.

Ordinarily, one could walk into Kairi's apartment at any time of the day and find it nearly spotless. Sleek and classy black leather sofas and lounge chairs dotted her small but serviceable living room. The pictures on the wall matched perfectly, the kitchen counter was glowing with polish and pride. The entire place tended to lean towards coming off as something one would find in more modern and trendy version of Better Homes and Gardens.

But... but...

Unwashed dishes in the sink. Newspapers strewn across the floor, the style sections open and scattered absolutely _everywhere_. Jackets on the floor, chic little hats lying in a heap. Mismatched socks and piles upon piles of empty water bottles. Where was the recycling bin? Just where _was_ it? ...And that afghan Kairi was buried under must have been the most hideous thing Riku had _ever _seen in his entire life.

Needless to say, he was absolutely shocked.

"...Y-your apartment! It's..."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I had company coming." Kairi's voice came out a monotonous drawl. Now Riku was worried.

"Well I just hadn't seen you in forever, Kairi... And... a while ago, Sora... um... Well... are you okay?"

She seemed particularly riveted towards the TV at that moment, for she waved her hand dismissively, shook her head and promptly hissed, "Shh! This is a new episode!"

Riku warily stepped further into the apartment. He crept past the piles of junk looking ever so unnatural in Kairi's apartment of all places. He brushed a few random articles of clothing off a nearby lounge chair and carefully sat himself on the very edge.

And he blinked at the charming face of a young man who appeared on the screen, apparently walking his latest client through his oh-so-brilliant scheme for remodeling the family back yard.

"..._Landscaper's Challenge?_ Kairi, you can't be serious!"

"Shhhhh!"

A moment passed. Both were silent. The only noise disturbing the quiet atmosphere of Kairi's apartment were the delighted squeals of the couple as they returned to find their backyard a beautiful haven for both privacy and evening entertainment. ...And it was quiet for only a moment longer before Kairi drew a looong sniffle and then burst into tears.

"Ri-kuuu!"

"Wha- Kai- eh- Kairi!"

"We were supposed to get _married_, Riku! **Married**! For crying out loud, Selphie's _engaged_! _She's_ getting married in four months! Selphie gets _every_thing she wants! I never get _any_thing! I just make boys gay and sit in front of TVs and get _fat_! Fat, fat, **FAT**! Don't you under_stand_?"

No, of course Riku didn't understand. One, he didn't even understand that it was physically possible for Selphie to be married. Two, Riku had no concept of the word 'fat.' And three, well, it was usually Riku who made boys gay. The thought that it was actually Kairi who did this confused him to no end.

But of course, he had to lie. Or at least... he had to try to.

"Uh... I... um... Of course, I under-"

"Ohhh, you do _not_, Riku! You have no _idea_ what it's like! I'm gonna be twenty three and alone!"

"Kairi, you already _are_ twenty-three."

If Kairi heard him, she made a very great effort to pointedly ignore him as she fisted her hands stubbornly in her afghan and let out a deep, withering sigh. "I'll never have babies! I'll be sterile and end up marrying an old guy with liverspots! _Liver_spots, Riku! _Liverspots_!"

Well, even Riku had to shudder at that. But...

"Kairi, you're really starting to worry me. Here, let's just turn off the TV and take away the ice cream..."

"NO! Don't touch it!" Kairi shook her head then and let out a deep, shuddering sigh before waving her hands about aimlessly and biting her bottom lip. In a very tired, old voice, she said, "Oh look at me Riku, I'm falling apart! I forgot to put conditioner in my hair this morning and I brushed my teeth with body lotion. I don't need soft teeth... Maybe that's why boys hate me. I have soft teeth. Do you think that's it, Riku?"

"Are you even hearing a word you're saying?"

"And look! Ice cream! Not fat-free, not frozen yogurt! Ice. _Cream_! Ahhhhhggghahahahaaaa... I'm sitting here eating..." She blinked numbly at the label on the pint of ice cream sitting in her lap. "...eating..." She screwed up her eyes cradling it in front of her face and trying desperately to read through her tears before rolling her eyes in desperation and exclaiming, "Oh _hell_, Riku, I can't even _read_ anymore! I'm a meh-eh-eh-essss!"

"Give me that." Without wasting another moment, Riku determinedly reached over his little female friend and snagged the pint container from her grasp and whisked it away. "...Phish Food. Just as I thought." Letting out a deep sigh, he placed the ice cream container on the nearby counter of the kitchenette, taking Kairi's spoon with him so that she wouldn't be able to attack his eyeballs with it or something.

Upon his return to the sofa where Kairi was laying numbly, he was rather distraught to find that she hadn't even moved at all.

Shaking his head, he stepped forward over the magazines and newspaper littering the area, puttering his way over to his friend and saying, "Time to get up Kairi. You should be shopping or something. You usually do things like that on your days off, right? I mean, look! You even have your paycheck right-" Having picked up the little paper lying on the end table, Riku's eyes doubled in size as he just gaped at the numbers printed across the check. "Holy _crap_! How did you _get_ this much money?"

"Shmemmm...eh... what's-their-names... They bought the line."

"Really? The whole thing? Well that's great! I mean... Aw _man_, Kairi! You're freaking rich!" Riku blinked, lamely adding, "...Not that you weren't already. Now. You _definitely_ have to go shopping! We'll go buy you fifty pairs of shoes or something, okay? Does that sound good?"

"...I don't even know if I _have_ feet anymore."

Riku eyed the pint of Phish Food sitting on the counter and narrowed his eyes, shaking his head as he said, "I swear that stuff must be alcoholic... Well... Come on, come on! Up and at 'em already!" Riku yanked off the afghan with a flourish.

"Let's get a move-!" ...And then he _shrieked_.

"Oh Kairi... Oh _Kairi_!" All Riku could do was gape as he stared at Kairi, looking up at him pathetically, hair falling in a smooth auburn mop around her head and... the most horrifically mismatched set of sweats Riku had ever seen in his entire life. A brilliant red sweatshirt and a pair of drab purple sweatpants.

For Riku, there could be nothing more unnerving than that. "You're really _not_ okay, are you?" he asked quietly.

"I want babies..." Kairi mumbled.

"_What?_"

"You don't get it, do you? I _told_ you! You're not a twenty-whatever-year-old woman! I **_need_** a relationship, Riku! _Every_one I _know_ is getting married and having babies! I just have threesomes with Ben and _Jerry_ and have _phish_ babies! It's... it's... horrible!" "Do you even know what it's like to walk past some woman on the street pushing a baby carriage? And... and... I mean, you wanna _kill_ her and take her baby and raise it yourself! I'll marry wolves, dammit!"

"...You're absolutely insane."

"No. I'm just walking around like a frickin' cat in **heat**." Upon realizing that Riku was starting to have a very difficult time containing his laughter, Kairi narrowed her eyes dangerously and snapped, "Stop _laughing_ at me, Riku!"

"I'm sorry!" Riku tried. He tried very, very hard to stop laughing, but even as he bit his lip and tried so hard to hold his tongue, he just couldn't keep the insane snickering from spilling out, which only made Kairi's scowl even deeper. After a moment, Riku finally got control of himsef. "No, no... I... heh... I mean."

He tried again. He cleared his throat. He regained that composure that most people mistook as simply coming natural to him. "No. I... I really am sorry, Kai. I mean... I had no idea Sora was going to... I'm just sorry, you know?"

Kairi sighed and fiddled with her hands in her lap, staring sadly at her fingers and murmuring, "It might seem funny to you, but you really don't understand... I know I sound stupid, Riku. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just so lost and I feel so stupid and weak. I mean... I mean..." She let out a distressed little groan and waved her hands around as though trying to pull the right words out of thin air. Instead, she just exlaimed "Red and _purple_!" and figured that was as good as it was going to get.

"I know, Kairi. I know." Riku patted her arm consolingly and proceeded to mentally explain to himself, _Yes__, this is why I could never be with a girl_. "I mean, I might not understand. But trust me. I know. Red and purple. Yes. Um..." _As much as I love her, I have absolutely no idea what the hell go through her crazy girly head._ "Have you tried talking to other girls about it? Maybe they _do_ understand."

"All my friends are bloated with God's little gifts or waiting for their stupid specially ordered wedding dresses to arrive. It's not fair!"

"...Wait, what about that chick who owns your company! Duh! She's a _lesbian_! Maybe she has the same problem because she can't have babies with whoever she's with! I'll bet she'd understand, no doubt about it."

"Paine? ...Riku, her and _Rikku_ just went to a sperm bank for theirs. Sheesh. Don't you know _any_thing? Besides. Talking to Paine is like walking on needles for me."

"Oh... Uh. Turkey-baster, I take it?"

"No. They spent lots of money on doctors and all to make sure they could handle it and it'd work and everything." Kairi's lips puckered into a little frown as she stared rather fixedly at the TV across from her, the channel on mute and the mouths moving stupidly and just as silently. "They have a pretty little baby boy now," she said, and her words didn't come without that trace of bitterness that she wished wasn't there.

"...That's nice?"

"Are you **crazy**! Of course it's not nice! Honestly, Riku, I swear!"

"Well sitting around on your ass all day eating ice cream isn't going to help. That much I _do_ know, even if I'm not a girl."

"But they don't put their cows on hormones."

"So?"

"Sooo... it's better than giving me _more_ hormones."

"Kairi, the hormones they give cows are _growth_ hormones. They're not the... Oh come _on_! You know this stuff! You're smarter than everyone we know combined and you always have been! You can't honestly tell me that your stupid womanly hormones are making _you_ stupid too."

"...Um."

"Nevermind." It was Riku's turn to sigh as he slumped down onto the leather lounge chair once more, his fingertips burying themselves in his silver hair, his eyes looking pleadingly up at Kairi. "Listen Kairi... _Please_ don't let Sora rip you apart like this," he said quietly.

Had Kairi still been the little teeny-bopper of yore, she would've been knocked flat by that insistent look of Riku's. But the facts still remained facts. She was twenty-three and both of her attractive male friends were impossible _un_attracted to her. ...It was a deadly blow for _almost_ any girl.

"It's not his fault he's gay. Or bi. Or what_ever_ he is. Why didn't you just go out with him?" Kairi asked. She tried to ignore the strange way her words had come out as more of a whine than she'd intended.

"Because I already have a boyfriend! I can't believe you guys don't even _remember_ Leon!" Riku exclaimed.

"...Oh. I always just thought Leon was a-"

"Kairi, stop while you're ahead."

"Okay."

"Seriously though... I know that you solve your problems by going off and thinking about them yourself for a while, Kai. But Sora and I are always here for you... You _know_ that, right?" When Kairi gave him a small nod, it was all Riku could do to force a small smile on his face, sad though it may be, and say, "...Okay. Just... don't forget it. Promise?"

He began to pick his way across the floor of Kairi's apartment and over towards the door from which he'd entered, saying over his shoulder, "Call me in a couple days. We're going shopping whether you like it or not."

And almost as an afterthought, he paused by the counter of the kitchenette, threw Kairi an amused little look and scooped up the pint of ice cream, cradling it under one arm. "And I'm confiscating this, by the way."

"Wait, Riku..."

"Hm?"

"...Seven years..." Kairi said quietly. "Lots of people don't even know each other seven _months_ before they know they want to be together for the rest of their lives. ...So... what did I do wrong?"

"...Kairi... It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault at all. Sora just realized something about himself a... well, just a little later than he should have. And maybe at the wrong time... But he'll always be your friend, just like me. You know that..."

Riku said it. He knew he did. Yet as he closed the door softly behind him and walked silently down the hallway of the apartment complex, he still...

He wasn't entirely sure he believed the words himself.

x x x

In this world, there are three types of people. There are people who have sex before noon, there are people who have sex after noon, and there are people who have sex at many, many intervals throughout the entire day.

And Riku being Riku, he naturally fell into this very last category.

So it was probably somewhere around nine in the evening when he rolled onto his side and gave a small smile to the man lying beside him, brown hair tossled and mussed up every which way from their most recent... excursion of sorts. Leon raised an eyebrow at the look he received from Riku.

Riku could have sworn he'd seen the left corner of Leon's mouth twitch up into something- a smile?- but it was gone before he could get a better look. It was gone and Riku had that uncomfortable feeling that he was no more than a victim of shadows playing tricks on his eyes.

"Hey Leon..." Riku nearly stopped then. Perhaps it was some sort of sixth sense he was developing or perhaps it was just the sudden snap of the silence around them, broken by his voice. But Riku swallowed, the sounds like a cannonball hitting the ocean in the pit of his stomach before he cautiously, quietly asked, "We're... we're together, right?"

Silence.

"...Hell-o? Leon?"

"Hm?"

"Did you hear me?"

"No. What was it?"

"I... uh..."

"What?"

"I know it's a dumb question, but... You and me. We're going out, right? I mean, you're my boyfriend and everything, right?"

Leon froze, and for half a moment, Riku was struck by a bolt of fear, something that struck him so deep and terrified him so much he felt as though he couldn't move, he couldn't breathe for fear of falling to pieces. But then he heard Leon's smooth deep voice and he relaxed, muscle by muscle, inch by inch. "...I... don't really know why you have to ask," Leon said quietly.

"Neither do I. I mean, well, I do. It's just. Nevermind. Just... I mean, we are, right?" Riku fixed his mischievous smirk on his face, leaning closer towards Leon as he said, "Just say yes so we can move onto the fun part already. Just say yes and make me happy, no questions asked."

"...What?"

Riku grinned cheerfully and slid easily across the mattress, arms and legs drifting towards Leon as of their own accord while he murmured, "Good." Of course, that was when Leon's words... or rather... his word, actually made it through Riku's rather crowded and clouded brain and it hit him. It hit him pretty damn hard, too. "Wait a second, whaddya mean, '_what_?'"

"Honestly Riku..." Leon sounded almost desperate. About as desperate as it was physically possible for Leon to sound, that is. He slid off the bed and shook his head, his feet hitting the carpeted floor with a soft and pleasant thud as he levered himself to his feet. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, glancing towards the doorway as he pulled on a pair of loose sweatpants and quietly asked Riku, "Do you want anything to eat?"

"No, I don't. Don't change the topic! Are we going out or not?" But Leon had already left the bedroom. Determined, frustrated, and feeling that pit in his stomach drop away as the cannonball punched a wicked hole inside him, Riku tore out of the bedroom after Leon, following him into the kitchen with a vengeance. "Answer me, dammit!" Riku snapped.

"Calm down, Riku."

"_No!_ I want to know why you're having sex with me if I'm _not_ your boyfriend!"

"So why is it we have to be together to have sex?" Leon asked tiredly. His hand was resting on the door of the refridgerator, but he honestly didn't look capable of opening it. Even if he'd wanted to. He was just that drawn and exhausted, just that stretched beyond his limits.

And Riku...

Riku was trying so hard not to scream. Not to yell. Not to lose it any more than he already had and not, not, _not_ to start crying.

"Wh- What the hell? Normal couples are considered to be together _before_ they have sex! **_Before!_**"

"Who on earth gave you that idea?"

"Everyone! That's how _everyone_ is, Leon! Stop being such a stupid asshole already! If you're fucking somebody, there's usually a good chance they're your freaking _significant other_!" Riku's eyes widened slightly as a sudden thought crept up from the corners of his mind, dark as the shadows and just as ready and willing to play tricks at his expense. "Do... you have another boyfriend or something?" he asked.

"I don't have a boyfriend period."

"What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

"Riku. When have you _ever_ called me your boyfriend." Statement of fact, not a question. Riku had never directly referred to Leon as his boyfriend. And somehow they both knew it. And somehow they both knew that Riku was going to try his damnedest to deny it.

"I-I... Well..." ...It's just too bad that that was all Riku could manage to come up with.

Shaking his head again, Leon's gaze remained focused on the floor as he pushed himself away from the refrigerator, a sigh ghosting past his lips as he brushed past Riku and returned to the bedroom. All the while, Riku remained where he was. ...Still too afraid to move, too afraid to breathe, all out of fear of breaking apart.

Leon returned moments later, fully dressed and running his fingers slowly through his hair. He studied Riku carefully for a moment, but the gaze was not returned. Riku stood immobile in his own kitchen, hands clenched in fists at his side, eyes hidden by a fringe of bangs, out of order and just begging to be brushed aside. ...And Riku, begging to be comforted and to be informed that it was all just some horrible, sick joke.

"Right." And as much as Leon was dying to reach out and touch the younger man in front of him who looked so much like a boy right then... he didn't. He folded his arms and stood in silence for a moment. He looked around the room with a false calmness and when he felt the air was just too heavy to breathe in any longer, he nodded once and murmured, "Let me know when you're over your little outburst, would you? It's annoying me."

Riku heard his footsteps moving down the hallway and he heard him slide his shoes on. He heard the door close softly behind him and he wanted to scream and throw and break something, but for the life of him he couldn't manage it. If Leon had just slammed the damn door like a man...!

If he had slammed the door, then what?

It took Riku a long moment to piece everything together and to articulate a response to it all. And when he had his response cradled inside, he opened up and let it loose with such a scream that it left his throat feeling raw and burned to the core.

"**_Fuck you, Leon!_**"

...When Riku was feeling down, he had a system to pull himself up. And this system was always on hand, for it was usually parked less than twenty yards away from him almost all the time.

Riku walked out of his house at roughly two in the morning. In his right hand he carried a mug of coffee, in his left hand he carried a blanket. Oddly enough, he was thankful for the ungodly hour of the morning. ...It meant that no one could see Riku carting the ratty old fleece thing out to his car.

The car itself was an interesting little contraption. It was nothing special- the kind of car you would expect to see in a high school parking lot, owned by some punk kid who had worked his ass off all summer long just to save up for the hunk of junk. But that was precisely why Riku had fallen so in love with his car. He'd worked so hard and for so many countless hours, just to get the ratty old thing rolling into his driveway.

And you can bet your life that he took care of his car like it was his own living, breathing child.

When it snowed, Riku made sure to give his darling a few good doses of antifreeze. He scraped the ice off the windshields with such love and care that he was often late for work because of it. And through the hot summer days, Riku made sure to turn his car off in impossible traffic so the cute little thing would never get overheated.

Really, it was borderline obsession.

But that evening, Riku had only one intent as he fumbled for the car keys, unlocked the door on the driver's side, and slid into the seat. The well-loved padding happily greeted its master with its own little hug and Riku was almost content. Granted, there was still that horrid little buzzing in the back of his head reminding him that _"Leon and you apparently never had a relationship- Ohmymymy but isn't that just to DIE for? Hehehe!" _

Riku frigged with the key in the ignition, he switched it forward, he switched it backwards. As the interior lights puttered to life while the rest of the car remained pleasantly asleep, Riku turned on the rickety old stereo and leaned further back in his chair.

He sipped his coffee.

He stared through the windshield.

_I have to go to work tomorrow..._ he thought, almost stupidly, almost pointlessly. _I really shouldn't be out here doing this. I should be asleep. I should be... I should be..._

_I should be with __Leon__. Like I normally am at this time of night._

x x x

The man who entered the office seemed to be a fairly pleasant sort, stocky and set low to the ground, a broad smile seeming to stretch his chubby cheeks to their very limits as he entered the room. It seemed rather curious, though, how he was able to squeeze into his collared shirt and tweed jacket, seeing as his almost abnormally large head looked ready to pop straight out of the whole get up.

That was Kairi's first impression of him, at any rate, as he was escorted into her small, tidy office by the company's polite little secretary. The two of them standing in her doorway was nearly enough to jar Kairi from her lethargic stupor that was still hanging over her from the day before, Yuna the complete opposite of her older charge.

One was tall, slender, and beautiful with a timid smile and an innocent blush. The other... short, and looking a bit like a cheerful brown pear.

"Kairi, this is... um... M-Mr. Tigi. He's here representing Ms. Aerith and... um..." Yuna trailed off, blinking and blushing and rubbing her left arm ruefully. ...No one had ever said she was a very good secretary.

Beside her, Mr. Tigi simply nodded jovially, his head bobbling up and down eagerly.

"Thanks, Yuna." Kairi smiled and nodded towards the younger girl, greeted by a nervous smile of Yuna's own making before she disappeared back out of Kairi's office, closing the door softly behind her.

Much like her apartment, Kairi's small office within the level of Paine's designing firm was sparsely furnished, but in such a way that it still managed to scream high class and style from five blocks away from its next client. And sure enough, Mr. Tigi seemed pleased by his surroundings as he bustled in, shook Kairi's hand, and sat down on one of the two maroon chairs seated opposite of Kairi's desk.

The request was simple enough. 'Miss Aerith,' as Mr. Tigi referred to her, desperately needed a gown for the upcoming Halloween function she was hosting for a nearby children's hospital. The event was sure to have a lot of press, and while Aerith herself apparently didn't care one way or another how the newspapers and magazines viewed her, the PR in charge of the woman most certainly did.

She needed something elegant and she needed something durable. She needed something that would pass but she did not need Calvin Klein's finest to be tying her down in the middle of a kids' party.

And while the cause was definitely noble enough and Kairi was more than happy to follow up on working with such a generous individual... well...

"I'm sorry, but I usually don't do single outfits, sir. It's just a standard business policy we've got established here and--"

Mr. Tigi suddenly seemed very flustered indeed, a look of incredible concern etches across his face in a flash, his chubby little hands wringing together in his lap while he babbled, "Oh dear, oh dear, I knew this would happen, I did, I did! Now what am I to tell Miss Aerith? She'll be so disappointed, Miss Kairi. So very, very disappointed."

"...Well I really _am_ sorry, Mr. Tigi, but-"

"Have you ever had someone disappointed in you, Miss Kairi?"

"...Of course I have, sir, but that's really not-"

"It is so bad, so very, very bad when Miss Aerith is disappointed. Never angry, oh no, no, no! Miss Aerith is never, never angry, but disappointed, why yes, yes, only sometimes is she disappointed. And now she will be disappointed in poor Mr. Tigi!"

"...Um?"

"She told me, Miss Aerith did, to show you this piece of paper..." Mr. Tigi rummaged earnestly around in the pockets of his oversized trench coat, screwing up his pudgy little face in concentration. Finally he pulled out the promised paper and waved it around eagerly before placing it on Kairi's desk, saying, "Now I do not know what is in this paper because I am an honest person and I would never look at something made for you, Miss Kairi. But Miss Aerith hopes that this will change your mind around."

Kairi raised an eyebrow and diligently unfolded the paper, raising it to her eyes and peering at it curiously. Written across the paper in very neat and loopy handwriting were these words...

_I am willing to offer you a starting payment of exactly half a million dollars. ($500,000.00)_

_This does not include the expenses of the gown and its materials. Please give Mr. Tigi the receipts of whatever materials you may need to purchase and I will see to it that you and your company are reimbursed accordingly._

_Thank you for your time. Please consider my offer carefully._

_Sincerely yours,_

_ Aerith Gainsborough_

Kairi read it through once. Kairi read it through twice. She lifted her eyes from the paper now clenched mercilessly between her slender fingers and she just stared at the chipper little man seated across from her.

"You can tell Miss Gainsborough that I have accepted her offer. Please have her contact me with a time and date we can get together and she can tell me what she would like for me to do," Kairi said evenly, trying very, very hard not to start hyperventilating mid-sentence. Luckily, Mr. Tigi simply nodded jovially and bowed his way out of the room with a fragmented little farewell.

x x x

"Uh, shouldn't you have a car or something?"

"What, and contribute to the whole Greenhouse Effect? Thanks, but _no thanks_. I'm a weatherman. And any _real_ weatherman knows just how nasty that crap is."

"Right."

"Hmpf, you don't believe me."

Cloud and Sora stood outside Sora's little red house, both Cloud with his hands on his hips and Sora with his hands tucked behind his back. Around them the autumn season was chasing back the summer, but they were still fortunate enough to have one last day of mild and pleasant warmth before it was gone for another six months.

"No, no, I do! Greenhouses are horrible! I got lost in a greenhouse once when I was four and I thought the guy watering the Venus Flytraps was Bigfoot, so I hid in with these weird vine kinda smelly plants. And I was hiding there for_ever_ until my mom found me. She _totally_ freaked out and ever since then I've never been to another greenhouse."

Cloud waited a moment, making sure Sora was done before he grinned broadly and said, "...That was a lovely story."

"Really? Thanks." Sora hesitated a moment before glancing nervously towards the ground and adding, "Kairi never listened to my stories."

"Hm, from what it sounds like, Kairi was a bit of a bitch."

"Oh? Wha-? But... nonono! She wasn't, really! She's... a really good friend of mine." _Even though I broke up with her and haven't heard from her since and heard from Riku that she's a complete wreck and now I feel really guilty and I can't believe I completely destroyed my best friend, you know, and..._ "I need to stop bringing her up..."

"Hey, it's okay. I know how breaking up with girls goes." _And boys too, really, but I'm not entirely sure if it's a good idea to broach that particular topic today, ne?_ "Sooo... You can ride on the handlebars or you can try sitting on the back."

They both turned their attention towards the rickety-looking bike in front of them then, Sora eyeing the thing warily while Cloud simply beamed with pride. It really was a battered old thing, looking like something pulled straight out of an episode of Leave it to Beaver. One of the ancient cruisers with no hand brakes and only one gear.

Sora was shocked to find that he actually found it strangely endearing.

"Which would be easier for you?" he asked.

"Doesn't matter to me."

"O-kay, which would be safer?"

"I have no idea." Tilting his head to the side, Cloud tapped his chin with one finger for a moment, looking quite reflective, really. "Come to think of it, I've never tried fitting two people on this bike before."

"...That's encouraging."

"Oh, just sit down already."

Sora laughed as Cloud sat on the bike, Sora sitting on the wide branch of metal jutting out behind it. He tested his own balance before picking his feet off the ground and nodding, saying, "Okay. Sitting."

"Good."

Now, Sora had ridden on many bikes in his lifetime. He'd even ridden on the back of Riku's bike one day long ago in their childhood. The kids had been playing war (or some equally childish-yet-heroic game) and Kairi had, of course, been taken hostage. The times demanded that, as her designated knights in shining armor, Riku and Sora had to make a dramatic entrance to rescue their beloved princess.

The fact that Sora had rode his bike into a tree the week before was a very, very trivial one.

So the boys had gotten by with what they had. Improvising, yet meeting the mark and then some. They'd always been good at that, Sora figured.

But Sora had never ridden on a bike with Cloud. And it was due to this fact that Sora was positively oblivious to Cloud's little need for speed. That. And his tendency to take certain corners of certain busy roads much more sharply than would have been advisable.

Somewhere between the moment the kickstand went up and Cloud gained enough momentum to go zipping down the hill, Sora found himself squealing and clinging to the blonde for dear life, the sound of Cloud's laughter filling his ears and making him want to seriously consider hurting the guy. But then Sora actually began to look...

As everything shot past them in a blur, all there was to be seen was color. There were no shapes and no edges, no corners, only curves and splashes of golds and crimsons. And once the initial heart-stopping fear of having his stomach nearly come flying up and out of his throat, Sora was able to let his mouth part into a smile, his eyes widen to take it all in.

They nearly swerved on a turn, small bits of gravel flying up from the road, clattering against the city sidewalk with a light patter that was quickly lost in the drone of cars and air rushing past their ears. Silvers and grays, yellows and browns, and- if they were lucky- the occasional splash of brilliant color filtering through the buildings and the people, the turns and the hills.

And when it all became too much to take in any longer, Sora still felt the fabric of Cloud's shirt clenched between his fingers and he still felt the warmth of the skin beneath it. He leaned forward slightly and the warmth spread and radiated out towards him, climbing up his arms and elbows, wrapping itself languidly around his neck and face.

The bike trembled as they zoomed over a shallow pothole, sending Sora's nose ramming straight into Cloud's back.

"Sorry, sorry!"

Cloud's response was lost somewhere in the wind as they flew around the last bend, coming to the broad expanse of open grass laced with concrete paths and speckled with wooden benches. The Traverse City park and the trees basking in the only glory October really had to offer.

Cloud left his ancient cruiser in the bicycle rack and the two of them began to walk aimlessly down the winding paths. They came to a stop somewhere along the way. They both sat down somewhere along the way. And somewhere along the way, both of them began to think it was a little eerie how they never had to suggest or discuss any of these actions- the just happened to be done and that was that.

_"Hey Sora?"_

_ "Cloud?"_

_ "Yeah, it's me. Hey listen, do... uh, do you wanna go to the park or something? I don't have to be at work for another three hours or so and I could use the exercise. You doing anything?"_

_ "No! I mean... I'm not doing anything. Sure, the park sounds great! I mean, yeah. Um. Right! Okay!"_

"Hey, you remember that song you were talking about?" Sora leaned back on his elbows, looking up at the canopy of golden leaves stretched above them. He was talking simply to talk. And yet it wasn't small talk. They were past the small talk.

Cloud was glad. And he nodded and he smiled and he asked, "'Waltzing Matilda'?"

Sora nodded. He said, "I tried to download it online yesterday, yanno. But I couldn't find it anywhere. I searched my ass off and I still couldn't find it."

"Well it's not like it's some bubblegum pop ballad, Sora."

"I know that. I just..." Sora bit the inside of his cheek, staring intently skywards. One leaf broke free from the branches, caught in a breeze and drifting sideways. Left. Sora's left. Was it the leaf's left? Did leaves have a left? "...What's it about?"

"It's about... well. It depends on how you look at it."

"How do _you_ look at it?"

"...Or how you read it, I mean."

"How do _you_ read it, Cloud?"

"...I listen to that song before I go to sleep sometimes. And when I'm sleeping then, I dream I'm walking in a park and there are tons of beautiful people around me. They're all people I've met before. And I see each and every one of them and think... I think... 'Oh, there's another life I've fucked up. Sorry.'" Cloud was now joining Sora in watching that one single leaf spiral towards the ground. Of all the hundreds of leaves they could've picked, they picked the same one.

"That's what the song's about, sort of. I think so anyway. Matilda is Love. And seeing as everyone has to court her and dance with her at one point, everyone gets hurt in the end because..." Cloud trailed off. The leaf landed in Sora's lap. Sora smiled. And Cloud smiled. "Well. Just because," he said.

Sora seemed to think about this a moment as he plucked the leaf up from his lap. His fingertips traces along the veins and, if you have ever felt a freshly fallen leaf, you know what it feels like.

He reveled in the feeling of the fibers underneath and he was amused to find himself wondering about all the layers that must go into making just one delicate little band of color. He held it up to the sunlight filtering through the dense jungle of park trees around them and he smiled once more before letting go and watching as the leaf was carried away on one of the many crosswinds rushing through the park.

And throughout the entire thing, Cloud watched on in silence, completely and utterly _fascinated_.

And Sora remained cheerfully oblivious as he finally responded, "I think you're wrong."

Cloud blinked.

Sora continued. "Everyone makes love out to be this wicked thing. I think they're stupid. It's a good thing, because without it a lot of us wouldn't be here and tons of people would be like... they'd have miserable lives! Mmhm... be-caaause lots of people, their only joy in life or whatever comes from loving someone really special to them and being loved in return."

He grinned boyishly and rocked backwards a little, hands clasping around his bent knees as he said, "We all get a little burned, but that's okay."

They were quiet then and more leaves began to trickle slowly down. Sora flopped over completely on the grass and stared up at the trees towering around him, arms stretched towards the sky, catching stray leaves between his fingers every once in a while as they blew by. And from time to time, one would slide between his outstretched arms and land pertly on his nose and Sora would giggle and blow it off with a little huff of a sigh.

Cloud swallowed and he tried not to wonder why no leaves landed on him. He was bigger, after all, so logically speaking, he should've been a better target and there should have been more leaves landing on him. ...But... Apparently, logic didn't work everywhere.

And somehow it was mutually decided between the two that, for the time being, the silence was alright. Cloud was wandering down his own muddled mental roads, trying to figure things out in his very Cloud-like fashion. Sora was lost somewhere, way, way off whatever road he'd intended to be on, frolicking in some nearby field playing with butterflies and Bambies.

Absurd? Absolutely. But not without reason.

And when it was that they stood up to leave, Sora smiled warmly at Cloud and although the autumn air was growing colder by the day, it was warm enough to be that Cloud could smile in return and lips wouldn't crack from the blistering cold.

They passed by a pair of rather scantily dressed girls lying sprawled across blankets, face down and apparently asleep.

Sora wrinkled up his nose in confusion and said, "I thought it was October. Why the heck would anyone try and get a tan in October?"

Cloud simply shrugged and chuckled lightly, ruffling Sora's hair with one hand while the other made itself at home in the pocket of his jeans.

x x x

That evening found Sora try to figure out how to hook up his TV again. He'd plugged it out several years ago, soon after he'd first moved into the little house. His mother had gone absolutely ballistic when she'd first seen it for sale and had demanded that Sora buy _that_ house- that it had to be _that_ house.

_"Mom, I seriously don't have the money to afford a house right now, yanno. I mean, I work at a..."_

_ "Oh come on, Sora! Look at this place! I mean, just **look** at it! It's like a little piece of the cottage right here in the city. Hehe, you're buying this house and that's final."_

So really, it was more like Sora's mother was buying the house for him while he wrote his soul off to her for the remainder of his life, forever in debt. Who could deny it? His mother was madly obsessed with buying tiny little bits and pieces of real estate.

But all in all, none of these were on Sora's mind as he desperately continued trying to remember how to rig up the TV. However, after whacking his head against countless walls and shelves, Sora finally managed to get a very faint and fuzzy image on the screen which appeared to be a talking fluffball moving about from left to right, an even larger blue fluffball behind him.

Ah, but it was just perfect.

Sora leapt up from the floor with a brilliant and victorious grin, ran into the kitchen and hurriedly got a heaping bowl of ice cream for himself before plopping down on the floor in front of the television.

"Tomorrow we can expect a few scattered thunderstorms here and there, but it's not looking like anything too serious at the moment. But if you look up here, you can see this cold front moving in right behind those thunderstorms, so if you've been enjoying these last couple days of Indian summers, well, they're coming to a close pretty soon as we're going to start seeing the autumn season really roll in..."

And no one has ever been so interested in watching the weather channel, for Sora stayed up until three in the morning, cheerfully listening to every word of the weekly forecast repeated over and over and over again.

(x) (x) (x)

Interesting things you might like to know... According to one particular online dream dictionary, gold leaves represent happy, good events in your life. Kairi's first scene was far too much fun to write. So were all the scenes with Cloud and Sora, oddly enough. And I _swear_ you will understand the chapter titles one day. I promise. I'm not being an ass. They're there for a reason. XD


	4. Luffenuff

**Quoshoopy**

'Luffenuff'

Riku awoke as he did every Sunday morning. His alarm cheerfully sang out sharply at six. He hit the snooze button.

Nine minutes later, it started at it again.

Snooze.

Nine minutes later?

Snooze. Snooze. So it all continued to replay itself until around ten in the morning when Riku finally awoke with a leisurely stretch, snapping and popping each and every joint in his back until he was completely and entirely satisfied with the world at large. ...Until he saw the empty pillow beside him. Until his memories caught up with his sad little waking brain.

"Shit."

x x x

"Cloud..."

The Cloud in question cracked open one eye, peering at Sora through his steepled fingers, a sleepy grin stretched across his face.

"Mm?"

They sat in Sora's living room, the stereo playing in the corner, Cloud's briefcase lying by the door. Though the two objects were in no way connected, neither were the two men lying sprawled out on the rug, one looking at the other, the other looking at the ceiling fan. it went round and round and never changed its course, but there was most certainly something to look at in its sad little movement.

"I think there's something wrong with me," Sora mumbled.

Cloud cocked his head to the side then, fully alert, but... holding back. "Oh?"

"I feel so romanceless." Sora said the words before he'd checked through them in his head, but he thought they captured it-- the thing he was feeling. But when Cloud couldn't even hold back a sharp snicker, Sora began to wonder if those were really the right words to be using. "Wh-hey! Stop laughing!"

But Cloud shook his head. He kept chuckling, still shaking his head, still chuckling. Sora glared, Cloud laughed-- the stereo kept playing and the fan kept spinning. "What am I supposed to do about it? Don't mean t'be the bearer of bad news, Sora, but, uh..." Cloud trailed off again, a wry little smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't remind me," Sora groaned, rolling over onto his stomach. He'd heard that old Elvis had suffocated himself on his bathroom carpet after falling over from a drug overdose. He wondered if he could make do without the drugs.

But there was Cloud, not one moment later, leaning over his smaller body and focusing on him quite intently. The warmth captured between them was comforting enough to force Sora's eyes shut. When Cloud spoke, his words weren't lost in any background noise-- not the hum of the fan or the racket of the stereo. They were carried swiftly and easily right along and into Sora's ear.

"Ah, there you are again. That sad little kid I met on the bus ride home. I wondered when I'd see you again," he said.

"...Heh. I'm not depressed."

"Sure."

"Stuff it."

"So what's got you feeling so romanceless, dearheart?"

Sora's brows furrowed together. His eyes shot open. "..._Dearheart?_"

"Would it help to read you some love-struck poetry?"

"God, please no."

"Here I go!"

"Cloud!"

"Ooone day you'll find me drowning in my coffee--"

"Aw, come on, seriously!"

"--under this broken bridge of ours, this broken bridge of ours, this broken bridge of ours. And we'll be so madly in love, this broken bridge and I--"

"Cloooud."

"--oh, this broken bridge and I. Promise me you'll meet me there, there, there. Promise me you'll meet me under this broken bridge of ours." With a little flourish on the word 'ours,' Cloud broke off into a softer tone, one finger jabbing Sora playfully in the arm, one corner of his mouth quirked into a smile.

"You and me, we're gonna float away like driftwood, baby, like driftwood, don't you see? You and me, we're gonna float away like driftwood 'neath this broken bridge of ours."

Sora blinked and said, "...That was depressing."

Cloud blinked and tucked both hands in his lap, his mouth opening to say, _"Sorry, I got a little carried away. I got a little confused. I--"_ But he stopped, he rethought his plan of action, his brilliant scheme. He retraced his footsteps and decided that forward was not the best direction to be heading in, not when dealing with an emotionally awkward Sora.

So instead, he took the roundabout approach.

"Want some more tea?" Cloud asked hopefully.

"I'm okay."

"Well, I know you're okay, but do you want some tea?"

"No. Um. Thanks." Sora frowned slightly, almost wincing at his own words. _What the heck's wrong with me?_ He absentmindedly began rifling through Cloud's open CD case, sprawled at his feet. Fingers flew over random unknown titles and Sora had probably never felt more stupid in his entire life. Up until the point-- "...Hey, it's that guy," Sora mumbled.

"Tom Waits?"

"Yeah. Is that song on here?" Sora looked towards the CD beneath his pointing finger. _What was it called again? Waltizing... Someone or other._

"Not today it's not. You don't need another sad song. Come on." Cloud jerked his head towards the front door, kicking the CD case closed with his foot as his hands reached down for Sora, hauling him to his feet. He would've laughed out loud at how easy it was to drag the boy anywhere, but somehow he wasn't sure if it was really a laughing matter.

_Oh, but he's doing it again._

Sora blinked owlishly up at Cloud, scrubbing his eyes with on hand, the other scratching his head-- just like some little kid woken up from the best damn sleep of their little wee lives. "Where are we going?" he asked sleepily.

"On a walk. That fitness stuff is supposed to be real damn good for you or something like that."

Sora shrugged and, just as Cloud had guessed, was dragged along with an unnerving lack of resistance. The two men, side by side, strolled down the sidewalks of the neighborhood, neither saying a word.

An elderly woman sat on her porch as they passed by, a cat curled up in her lap asleep, a grandson settled on the floor beside her, spinning a top around on the concrete. When the two came into his line of view, the little boy looked up and grinned broadly, for he knew Sora was 'one of the good guys,' seeing as he'd given his ball to him one distant summer day in the past. But his grandmother gave him a swift but gentle kick in the side, keeping him silent as the pair passed.

Silence, silence, silence...

They reached the end of the fifth block and neither had said a word, still. Sora scrunched his face up and bent over, his hands clutching at his stomach, suddenly.

"I don't feel so good..." he murmured. Ohshitohshitohshit... Knives danced up his spine as Sora found himself sprawled on the ground, hands splayed out before him, stomach churning, heaving. Cloud was saying... he was saying something.

Sora couldn't understand what, though. He couldn't understand and it just made him so angry. Anger made it worse-- he squeezed his eyes shut tight as his supposedly faithful body rebeled against him. _See if I ever treat you right again, fucker. Nothing but chocolate and TV from now on. Go ahead and break down. See if I care._

Well, even if Sora didn't care that he was dry-heaving on the concrete sidewalk, Cloud sure did.

"Sora! God, Sora... it's... hey, hey, it's okay..."

Sora could feel one arm around him, one hand rubbing in soothing circles on his back. He could hear the words, but to him they weren't yet words, just sounds. Just background noise to the louder roar in his head and the hiss of his breath and he'd never been so scared, he'd never been so scared.

"I don't-- don't understand. I'm happy... Good things happen to me... I'm happy..."

x x x

"Everyone knows I'm in over my head... everyone except goddamn little old me." Thud. "Over my head..." Thud. "Over my head..." Thud. "Twenty three and over my head."

"Ahem."

Kairi's head rolled pitifully to one side, landing on the desk with a final thud as she looked lazily upwards to see who on earth could be bothered to shake her from her mental playground. And who should she find framed in the doorway? Why, none other than the all-mighty owner--

"Ohmigod. Paine."

"Indeed." Paine pulled a slender pair of silver-framed glasses from their perch on her nose, inspecting them with a slight frown of disgust before idly tapping the folded metal body against her thigh. She studied Kairi critically for a moment, clearly waiting for an apology.

Or, at the very least, for an explanation as to why Kairi had preliminary costume sketches stuck to the side of her face with Play-Doh.

"C-can I help you?" Kairi stammered awkwardly. She flung her arms up in some sort of defensive movement, pushing papers to one side, cramming the Play-Doh back in its innocent little plastic tub of a container. Almost as a second thought, one hand shot out and yanked the stray paper from her face, tossing it onto the pile as the entire show was finished by one hell of a nervous and lame-ass giggle erupting from Kairi's mouth. "Heehee?"

"Yes. Actually, you can help me. You can go home." Before Kairi could object, Paine snapped her fingers and narrowed her eyes. "Go home and don't come back to work until you're ready to function normally."

"I-I'm functioning perfectly well!"

"No. You're not."

"But I am! I just got that--"

"Very important job from some mysterious client none of us is familiar with. It means we have nothing to fall back on if you screw up. So don't screw up. Go home, go to sleep. And don't screw up."

That was it. Kairi had no stockpiled set of nerves left on her and she found herself packing up and clocking out early. Again. Meanwhile, Paine was left puzzling over the little jar of Play-Doh, fighting the urge to pop it open and see just what the hell all the hype was about, anyhow. Of course she refrained, her being Paine, but the image of Kairi's Play-Doh balls all lined up on her desk didn't leave her head for the rest of the day.

"...Rikku? Why do children like Play-Doh?"

"Some kids like to eat it. I dunno, why? Were you thinking of picking some up for--"

Paine shook her head slightly, puzzled. "I don't think so. Play-Doh is... odd."

While Paine had been curiously exploring the wonders of children's play products on Kairi's desk, Kairi herself was making the long trek home, cursing the lack of cabs and cursing herself for wearing her suede lace-ups that day. But I can't honestly think of a pair of shoes that could've gone along any better with this skirt.

Yet no sooner had Kairi returned to her apartment, eager to fall into bed and sleep the rest of the day away...

"Excuse me, but you are Miss Kairi, correct?"

Barring her entrance to her apartment stood two lone figures-- the first very short and barrel-like, the second very slim and bird-like. Complete opposites for sure, disregarding the fact that even Kairi, in her sleepy stupor, somehow felt that there was something uncannily similar between the two of them.

"Mr. Tigi?"

"Ah, Miss Kairi! You remember Mr. Tigi! Good, good!" The plump man moved forward, away from his silent companion, taking up Kairi's petite hand in an enthusiastic shake, continuing all the while, "Amazing things, Miss Kairi! Amazing things Miss Aerith expects from you, truly, truly she does!"

With that, the second visitor came into play. Dressed in a long fur coat, her head was neatly covered in a delicate silk scarf, hair tucked possessively into it, only one thin brown tendril breaking free and falling over her face. Slender fingers reached up and removed a pair of casual sunglasses.

And when she spoke, Kairi felt she had never heard any words before-- any nothing, any something. She became aware of the fact that she stood across from one of the few revolutionary people still in existence.

"Kairi? I've been dying to meet you! I'm Aerith-- sorry for our abrupt arrival." Aerith laughed, covering her mouth prettily with one hand before adding, "It would have been more expected, but apparently Mr. Tigi can't seem to remember to make appointments or anything like that. Not very well, at any rate."

"I... um... w-would you like to come in?" Kairi asked lamely. As Aerith graciously stepped to the side and proceeded to make some idle comment about all the fall leaves just beginning to drop, Kairi anxiously moved forward to jab the key in the slot and shove open the door.

"Please to meet you... would you like some-- some tea? Cocoa? Coffee? Um... Water?" Kairi fingered the hem of her coat nervously, kicking a stray magazine under the sofa before hurrying to bury another beneath the cushions. Her company seemed unfazed-- they stood in the doorway, smiling pleasantly and removing their own coats at a leisurely old pace. Kairi's gaze lingered on the masses of rich fur adorning Aerith's and she seemed to catch the other woman's attention.

"It's not real." She smiled. "It's teddy bear fur. Genuine teddy bear fur."

"Oh."

"Miss Aerith is very much against killing bunnies," Mr. Tigi added helpfully.

"Would you... like help making tea?" Aerith's speech only faltered as she untied her scarf, shaking her head in some motion that struck Kairi as being altogether far too elegant to really be all that human. Torrents, waves, rivers of copper hair spilled free.

Kairi's eyes widened, but Aerith's cheerful smile never wavered. "Help?" Aerith prompted again. Kairi nodded dumbly.

The two of them set to work as Mr. Tigi seemed to get a kick out of simply walking around the room and providing his commentary on just about everything. Lovely couches-- how soft they look! Oh, but they're dead cows. So pretty, though, so dark and pretty. Did you take those photos on the wall, Miss Kairi? What charming people! Mr. Tigi very much enjoys charming people--

"Well look, a nice blanket!"

"Afghan?"

"It's my grandma's!"

"It's lovely, lovely!"

"...It is?"

Mr. Tigi shot her a broad grin. "Family heirlooms," he said, "are very amazing, do you not think so? Family heirlooms make for precious things-- even more precious than a mountain of dead-cow sofas."

Kairi smiled awkwardly. Aerith just laughed. Somehow Kairi couldn't shake the feeling that Aerith-- if nobody else-- knew that the Afghan was no family heirloom.

Some time later, Aerith's fingers closed gently around her small mug of tea as she leant forward earnestly and said, "So Kairi... I was hoping we might be able to get the measurements done today so you can get started on the gown. Is you schedule free for an hour or so?" She raised her tea to her lips and took a long and silent sip, watching Kairi carefully over the rim of her mug.

As she watched, she was watched in return. Kairi had never seen someone like Aerith before-- none of Paine' other clients could even compare to the woman sitting across from her at that moment. In all honesty, it made Kairi feel like some sort of brutish dwarf in comparison, though she would certainly never confess so to anyone but herself.

"No, no, not at all! I mean, I'm free-- er, I don't have plans or anything."

"Excellent! This won't take long." Aerith reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a tape measure, just an ordinary tape measure. For a moment, Kairi was caught off guard. Whether she expected the tape measure to be made of gold or not-- who knows. But she was soon over her shock when Aerith laughed again, lightheartedly and perhaps even a little mockingly. Kairi could only smile herself as she understood that Aerith knew all the assumptions that could ever be made about her.

x x x

Soft and slippery, smooth, saucy... Saucy?

Riku frowned, his fingers pausing their descent towards the bucket of murky water at his side. Smooth. Down his hand went, a swish, a slurp, and again as his fingers skimmed over the surface-- not of the water, but of the lump of clay before him.

All around were shelves, mounds of this, that and the other, some glazed in bright and vivid colors, some a more natural and dusty tone. But they were everywhere, these creations-- plates, cups, saucers, jars, vases. Oh, but the sculptures-- the sculptures had them all bested, every last one of them. Horses, carriages, elves and mermaids, men, women, hands and faces, their mouths-- some pouting, some a softer sort of smile.

Soft...

His fingers worked away, pulling, stretching and molding the clay into some sort of form from deep inside his head. It was all there, but--

"Oh for God's sake."

Splat. His fist came down on his construction and his chair shoved roughly away from the wheel before him.

_"Riku..." Nimble fingers trailed along his spine, a ghost of feeling left in their wake as they made their way downward... downward..._

_Downward..._

_"Leon!"_

"Leon!"

"Riku?" Leon stood in the jarred doorway to Riku's studio. The fingers, the touch was gone. Back to a dark and musty basement, clay dust floating in drifts beneath the ceiling fan as it rotated on a slow, creaking motor within. Riku swallowed thickly, plunging his hands into the bucket beside him and washing the clay from them hurriedly.

Leon awkwardly took a step forward, took a step backward. Hung away from Riku, unsure of... "I came for my... I..." Leon sighed, running his fingers briskly through his hair. From his pocket he pulled a small silver key-- Riku had half expected a pocket knife. _Please use it to cut the rest of my heart out, you fucking bastard._

Tossing the keys to Riku, Leon blinked as they hit the floor with a light clatter. Riku stared numbly at the clay before him. Leon... continued to hang back.

Refusing to talk about substance... Smooth, soft substance?

Sweat. Leon brushed his palms against his denim-covered thighs. His tongue flicked out, wet his lips nervously. Smooth, soft sweat?

"Do you... I wondered if I could pick up my book."

"Which one?"

"The green one."

It was there, of course, a scrap of paper tucked in the center, marking the spot where Riku had left off. Under a dust rag, under a sheaf of concept sketches, paintbrushes caked with dried and hardened glaze...

Riku practically chucked the book towards Leon-- not the brightest thing to do in a ceramics workshop. But Leon caught it deftly, turned it over in his hands, the cover facing up. For lack of anything else to do, his fingers ran thoughtfully over the words:

TRAGIC SENSE OF LIFE.

"Thanks," he muttered.

Riku said nothing.

He said nothing as Leon stood there awkwardly, just a moment longer. He said nothing as the thoughts ran through his mind-- desperate little thoughts hoping that he would hear an apology, an explanation. Anything. But Leon just shook his head and headed back up the stairs. And when he heard the door close quietly, calmly, and without any sort of emotion whatsoever... Riku still said nothing.

Two hours' time found him lying on his back on the floor, staring up at the fan above him. Every time it hit a point, a certain point in its rotation, the fan would let out this painful little creak. And in four or five seconds, it would come again.

Creeeak.

Creeeak.

Creeeak.

Some ways below the fan, Riku stared back at it, not blinking, not moving. His eyes focused on the light-bulbs and they burned into his skull something fierce and painful. In his left hand was a paintbrush he twirled around his fingers, in his right hand was a small lump of clay he crushed and molded as he pleased. He set up a pulsing rhythm that went along with the death calls of his fan. Creeeak, squish, flip. Creeeak, squish, flip.

And all the little mermaids and all the little horses and all the kings men lined up on the drying shelves along the walls-- they watched quietly as Riku's arm stretched up, his right arm, a flash, a pop, a tinkle of glass moving through air and headed downward, downward...

Downward...

"Fuck!" Riku winced in the darkness, feeling the remains of the bulb falling across his skin. Some of it hurt, but some of it was just cold. He rolled over and laid there for another hour, not in any particular rush to move very far or very fast.

x x x

Sora... wasn't quite sure what he'd gotten himself into.

He could remember bits and pieces of the past two, three hours. He could remember the CDs, the easy-going morning spent lounging around with Cloud, just mindlessly enjoying his company like some kind of lovesick drone. And there was a blank, a white, empty blank in his memory surrounding their walk. The last image he could manage to call to mind was of a kid on a porch spinning a top between his two hands.

And now...

The station was a mix between a laid-back lounge and a wired and reckless film set. The blue screen hung on the wall, a large and imposing looking computer situated across from it, cameras, microphones, lights and control panels scattered across the broad expanse of the room. Coat racks stacked with blazers and trench-coats, scarves and mittens, hats and mufflers.

Amidst it all stood Cloud, looking strangely out of the character that Sora had come to identify him with.

"Cloud, ready to go in five, ya?"

The blonde nodded steadily towards the man behind the camera. Sora could vaguely remember him introducing himself as Bokka or Chokka or something equally ridiculous. It was a roomful of loud strangers bonding over cups of cheap and watery coffee, but Sora had never felt more at ease than he did then, just looking in on them all as a quiet spectator of something so simple...

But Cloud, he--

No smiles, no music, no jive. No nothing from him as he brooded over his own styrofoam cup clasped between his two pale hands. The two of them, Cloud and Sora, sat on a battered sofa facing away from the set, neither saying a word. At least, not until Cloud looked up and quietly began to speak, his voice deeper and harsher than Sora remembered it being.

"You're okay?"

"Mm." Sora nodded earnestly and took a deep gulp from his own cup, nearly gagging on the steaming liquid that streamed down his throat and burned his poor defenseless stomach.

"You can tell me if you're not, you know..."

"I'm fine, really."

"...Alright."

Sora looked hesitantly up at Cloud from over the white rim of his cup, studying the blonde who, in turn, was busy studying the ground. _You could take a picture of him for a National Geographic. He's just so natural all the time, it's hard to believe the Cloud I know seems so different from this one. Are they both real? Both of them seem... _ Sluuurp. Smack, smack.

"Hey Cloud?"

"Hn?"

"...Could I get some more coffee?" The very thought of drinking more honestly made Sora's stomach clench and whine pitifully, but it was all mere background noise to the mental victory fanfare going off in Sora's head as Cloud shot him a warm, broad grin.

"Sure."

x x x

Several minutes later, Sora made his quiet exit from the weather station, bidding Cloud farewell from behind the camera. And even through his professional cover of Mr. Weather, Cloud still managed to shoot him a small, out-of-character smile that left most crew members reeling and checking the set later to make sure bad lighting wasn't playing tricks on their eyes.

Sora, on the other hand, was unbelievably satisfied as he made his way out of the building and onto the streets. The taste of his own bile had long since been replaced with the taste of bad coffee, and even though it probably seemed like a rather idiotic idea, Sora couldn't help but eye the bar across the street with increasing interest. So he simply caved and strolled on in.

But who should he find seated on a cold and lowly bar stool? Why, none other than--

"So, you taking my old job, huh, Sora?"

"Wh-- Tidus!"

The warm and perpetually tanned face of his childhood friend shone back at Sora through bleached bangs. A cocky grin, a sort of assurance that didn't exist anywhere else on the face of the earth. "In the flesh," Tidus said.

"Hey man! I thought you were outta town! Weren't you and Selph going to visit your..." But that was where Sora stopped, for he noticed the flinch and he noticed the way Tidus looked down, looked away. And so he was forced to ask, "...What happened, Tidus?"

"...She left, man," came a quiet response. "She just left."

"I... I'm sorry."

"...Heh. Three weeks 'til the big day, yanno? Just three weeks and she left."

"...C-Can I ask what happened?"

Tidus heaved a small sigh, mouth puckering in to a frown as his fingertips ran across the rim of the empty glass in front of him. "I don't know. I don't even know and... God, I just don't know."

He seemed to think about his words for a minute and shook his head, continuing awkwardly, "I mean, I do. I mean, what happened... I know. But. It. I was just out having a drink. And... she came in and she said... She said, like, 'Tidus, I have to go.' And I... I guess I was kinda not there or something. I mean, I'd been getting nervous and I guess, maybe I had one too many. So I said, 'And I have to get another drink...' Or... something. And she said it again, she said, 'No, no, Tidus. I mean it. I have to go. You understand, right?'"

"And she left and I didn't understand and I didn't understand until I got back to the hotel and her stuff was gone and her key was on the table." "No note, no... nothing. Her cell's off, no one knows..." "No one knows where she is."

"...God, Tidus..."

"Three weeks. I had the tux and everything, man. I had the tux and _everything_. All we had to do was just say a few stupid words. And that woulda been it."

"Well damn. Enough of my lame story. What're you doing hanging around with Strife, man? He's always acting like he's got a ten foot pole shoved up his ass."

"...Eh?" The back of Sora's mind carefully pointed out that Tidus must have been sitting on that bar stool for one hell of a long time if he'd caught a glimpse of Sora and Cloud entering the weather station across the street.

"Yeah. Man, he's one cooold sonofabitch." Before Sora had a chance to object, Tidus switched topics, suddenly asking, "Say, how're you and Kairi doing?"

_Crap, I didn't realize how long it'd been since I talked to Tidus. He doesn't even know! _ "...Ah... w-we broke up..."

"No shit." Tidus seemed to roll the words over in his mind a few times before he finally perked up. "No shit, huh? HAH! Must be fate we met up like this. Now we can both feel like shit together!"

_Erm. Hm. Somehow I don't think this is going the way it's supposed to be. _ And so Sora tired again. "No, no, no, it-- it's not like that, it..."

"Ah, come on, Sora! Have a drink!" Waving off Sora's objections with a carefree hand, Tidus turned to the bartender eagerly, saying, "Sir, can I have a strawberry daquiri for the squirt? You never really could handle much of any drink, could you, Sora? You don't really look like you could, either. Way too puny. We should work on you. You could come to the gym with me, we could swim a few laps. Cardiovascular, and whatever-the-heck." Pause. Blink. Painful realization. "Selph used to come to the gym with me."

"Tidus, you're completely misunderstanding this."

"See, now that you and Kairi split and me and Selph-- well, _something_ happened... Now that all that went down, why don't we go back to our first love, eh?"

_No way does he mean that the way it _sounds _like he means that. _ "...WHAT."

"Blitzball!"

"...Oh. Blitzball."

"Yeah, man! I hear Traverse High's been looking for some coaches for their team. Whaddya say? We could seeeriously whip those kids into shape. Sounds like fun, huh?"

"Tidus... um..."

"No better way to get over it all than to blitz." The bartender slid the cheerful pink drink across the counter, Tidus' outstretched hand catching it with ease as he passed it on over to Sora with an optimistic little grin. "You still have our old ball?"

"Well, yeah, I mean..."

"Great! Come on, Sora, let's go get it. We can take it to the park and just throw it around and--"

"Ti--"

"Or in your backyard, I guess. You ever clean that place up?"

"Tidus--"

"Nah, guess not. Well, we could clean up your backyard first and--"

"We already did."

"...How? That place was a total--"

"Cloud, uh... You know. Cloud. He helped me."

"...Whoa, Strife helped you do yard work, man? ...Daaamn."

"It's not like that."

"Like what?"

_Damn, this is getting really frustrating. _ "...Okay, Tidus. I need you to listen for a moment. I need you to say absolutely nothing for just, like... five-- no, too hard... um, two minutes. Can you do that?"

"Uh. Sure."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"I think I'm gay."

"..._Christ,_ Sora!"

"No, no! You promised!"

"I mean... _Good God_!"

"Tidus!"

"You're a **homo**!"

"No, no, no, shut up!"

"But you've slept over at my house, like... _thirty times_!"

"Tidus!"

"Okay, okay, hold up. You're not like... gay on **me** or anything, are you?"

It was here that Sora had to stop for a moment to gather his tattered little bearings. ...Once that was settled, he proceeded to fix Tidus with the look that he reserved specifically for his bizarre blonde buddy. "Gay... on _you_?"

"..."

"...God, no."

"Hey. If I were gay, I'd totally be gay on me."

"I'm not 'gay on you!' It was Riku!"

"...Ohhhh. Yeah, I always thought you two were a little too friendly, if you know what I mean."

"Tidus!"

"Okay, okay, whatever. Shutting up. Though it's definitely been two minutes."

"And you were talking!"

"Not the point."

"Okay. Listen. I told Riku. And bad things happened."

"Hey yeah, he's queer, right?"

"How come Riku gets to be called queer and I'm just _gay_ on people?"

"...Well I mean come on. Just look at Riku."

"Shut up! You're supposed to be quiet!"

"Not my fault you're gay all over everyone."

"I'm not!"

"So now you're out of the closet, but you're in denial. The hell's wrong with you, man?"

"I'm not out of a closet, I'm not in denial! I'm trying to talk to you!"

"...Okay."

"Thank you."

"...Hey, but isn't Riku with that, ah..." Tidus tapped one finger against his chin thoughtfully, trying to place some vague, pretty-boy face with some vague, pretty-boy name. "You know..." He drummed his fingers against the counter... "Hm..." He tapped his foot against his stool... "Like..."

"Tall, brown haired, creepy guy with the scar?" Sora provided.

"Yeah, that's the one."

"Leon."

"Knew his name started with an 'E.'"

"It doesn't. 'Leon' starts with an 'L.' Idiot."

"Hey, don't get started with name-calling just because you can't pronounce the guy's name."

"Anyway. ...We had a bit of a fight."

"Catty."

"Something like that. I guess I sort of said their relationship was utter bull because Riku and Leon never really do anything together but have sex."

"Well, that's one sure-fire way to piss a guy off. Good God, Sora."

"I didn't know I was doing it at the time..."

"...Hey, it's cool, man. Just chill. It's no big deal. There are plenty of other... ah, silvery man-fish in the sea or whatever the hell. ...Good _God_, Sora! _Man_-fish! Whyyy?"

Sora just stared blankly at Tidus as his poor old friend struggled to come to terms with a sexuality that wasn't even his.

"Okay. ...Okay. ...O-kaaay. It's cool, seriously. Listen. Okay. Here's what we're gonna do..."

x x x

Sora arrived home that evening, a newspaper clipping in one hand, his house keys in the other. The empty mugs of tea from that morning sat out on the counter, one right beside the other, cold, for sure, but probably not lonely. With that in mind, Sora assured himself that there was absolutely nothing wrong with leaving the mugs there to bond overnight as he scuffled towards his bedroom.

His keys and the scrap of paper made their way to the beside table. He made his way under the covers and told himself that a little nap was all he needed and he'd be just fine when he woke up. And yet as he rolled onto his side and began to allow himself to drift off, the last thing he saw was the paper and the last words he read were nothing but a fragment...

"Needed: Blitzball Coa--"

_Blitzball... Yeah, maybe Tidus is right. Maybe I should go back to doing fun things. Blitz was fun... Maybe I should..._

(x) (x) (x)

Hopefully the looong chapter length made up for the looong gap between updates. On the bright side, I actually KNOW what the next chapter is going to be about! (This is rare for me.) So look for an update in the near future. In the meantime, reviews are sweet, sweet can-dy you kno-ow you want to give me.


	5. Boy As Prophet: Part One

**Quoshoopy**

'Boy As Prophet: Part One'

Kairi noticed absolutely nothing different when she rolled out of bed that morning, absentmindedly scratching a bothersome little itch behind her ear, rolling her shoulders once, twice. Good to go, ready for another day.

When she moved into her bathroom and washed her face and brushed her teeth, she still noticed absolutely nothing different.

And even when she moved into the kitchen and saw Riku seated by the island counter, chowing down on a pan full of brownies Kairi had hidden so carefully in her refrigerator... Well, even that wasn't really all too far away from the norm, was it?

"Hello, Riku. Good to see you're making yourself at home. ...Like always," she said blankly.

And Riku responded with a very intelligible, "Mouf."

"...Yanno, there's like, a thousand calories in just one square inch of those damn brownies."

"Gobbfufair." Swallowing his current mouthful of mousse-frosted brownie, Riku nodded several times, quite agreeably and all, just before saying, "'M boyfriend's a dick."

"Mm. I should hope he has one, yes."

"Don't get me started on _that_. So what's up?"

"Oh, I don't know."

Another brownie descended into the bottomless pit of Riku's mouth, sparking another string of, "Munfinunorganleff'nnnies, m'naoooming?"

"Sure, take your time. I'm in no rush." As though to prove her statement, Kairi lazily picked up the remote on the countertop and turned on the TV across from her in the living room. Riku still couldn't help but cringe at the sight of Kairi watching TV-- she clearly just wasn't a master at the art of watching the screen. Instead of being an active watcher, she just sort of allowed her eyes to glaze over, her mind obviously wandering way out in left field somewhere.

_Sigh. Time for Dr. Riku to step up to plate. Damn. Dealing with girls is rough._

"Okay. I thought it was a good sign when I walked in, the afghan was gone, and you were still asleep. But if I can eat your special mocha brownies and not be castrated for it, something's still on your fine little femme head." Almost as though in an effort to prove his own polite interest, Riku even took the time to cut Kairi a tiny little half inch piece of brownie. "Do share."

"Riku, I don't suppose you were planning on turning straight anytime soon?"

"Nah, can't say it's big on my list of things to do, really."

"Mm. That's a shame."

"You're not that low, Kai. Come on." Of course, one look at the bedraggled girl was all it took to send Riku into a brief chuckling and snorting fit, which he tried to poorly cover up by saying, "Heh, okay, so maybe you are."

Whistling off-key, Riku absentmindedly rifled through a small stack of magazines and newspapers Kairi had strategically placed on the countertop, trying to keep himself entertained while Kairi was busying rummaging around for some orange juice. And sure enough, Riku managed to find something that did indeed hold quite a bit of his interest, pulling out a sheaf of sketch paper with some hesitant little concept sketches dancing across the paper.

Some slender, long-haired girl in the beginnings of an ornate gown, still obviously very much in the planning stage.

"Hey!" Kairi frantically snatched the stack of papers away from Riku, scowling at him moodily and tucking them under her arm. If it hadn't been for the glass of orange juice, she might actually have managed to look somewhat intimidating. Then again, she was Kairi.

"Who's the naked chick?" Riku asked cheekily, popping another small corner of brownie in his mouth and munching away.

"WHA! Ehuh, n-no one! No one! There is no naked chick, Riku! They're concept sketches, okay? For a costume. She doesn't just pay me to draw her naked, for crying out loud!"

"Christ, Kairi. It's not a big deal. She was classy, whoever she was. If I were straight I'd probably have a major boner just by looking at your little drawing."

"Riku, cut it out."

"Hey, hey, I was just kidding. ...Kairi..."

"I'm sorry, okay? It's just... Bleeeh." Kairi stared numbly at the next unusually small piece of brownie Riku handed her, not knowing exactly what else she could do other than just take it and make the best of it."...Thanks, Riku."

"Always here to help. Oh, hey. While you're up, could you get me some milk?"

"...Sure, whatever."

"That's my girl." Rather than saying something stupid like, "_Weren't you the one who swore off TV in the ninth grade because she swore it rotted minds?_," Riku instead took a much, much wiser approach, taking one look at Miss Mary Tyler Moore prancing across the screen in her fine seventies attire and saying, "Hey, you know who she reminds me of?"

"Hm?"

"Ohhh, a certain little redhead. Not to mention any names."

"Riku, go fall in a ditch."

"Love is all around, no need to waste it-- you're gonna make it after a-all!" Laughing at his own joke, Riku drummed his fingers on the counter, his head picking up a very slight bobbing motion to some song that clearly only he could hear. No doubt the result of a long-overdue sugar high.

"Oh hey, your lezzie boss woman called earlier. Said you had the rest of the week off as long as..." Frowning slightly, Riku tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment before snapping his fingers and continuing, "Ah. As _long_ as you check in on Friday afternoon with an update on Aerith's comission. ...Whatever the hell that entails. Is she that chick in the picture? The one who's paying you a fortune to make her a Halloween costume?"

"It's not just a Halloween costume, Riku. She needs for this childrens' fundraiser... um... thing. Listen, whatever it is, it's important. She's probably the nicest client I've ever had, which is absolutely shocking when you think about it. Money makes people rotten, I swear."

While she spoke, Kairi's fingers busily set to work pulling the few tangles out of her auburn hair, combing it this way and that, searching for split-ends unconsciously and almost damn near obsessively.

"...You don't have to do that, yanno," Riku drawled.

"Do what?"

"That whole... Hair thing. You're not going in to work today, remember?"

Kairi simply shrugged it off by lifting one shoulder, fingers busily combing and pinning her hair back, each with a separate task, its own agenda. After a moment, Riku heaved an airy little sigh and grumpily slid the pan of brownies away from him, crossing his arms and plopping his head moodily into the makeshift pillow they formed.

"Riku, do you ever spend a day at your own house? You know, working on pottery or something? Making a living?"

At this, Riku all but bristled defensively, narrowing his eyes and spitting, "Hey, hey, chickie girl whatever-you-are. Tourist season is the big season for me. That's summer, when the big craft shows are. Does it look like summer? No. No it doesn't. Off my back, woman." ...And then he helped himself to another brownie.

"Freeloader," Kairi muttered.

"Workaholic," Riku retorted.

"Am not."

"Are too. And a terrible cook, I might add. These brownies are shit."

"You're lying."

"Damn, you saw through my scheme. Mm, mocha brownies. You know, you could make these brownies even _more_ special if you added a little bit of--"

Clearing her throat, Kairi smiled tightly as she snatched the half-empty brownie pan away from Riku's wandering hands and marched it straight back over and into the waiting refrigerator. "Thanks, but I think the brownies are just fine without being 'special' brownies, Riku," she replied cooly.

"A little high never hurt anyone."

"_Why_ are you here."

"Just spreading the love, babe."

x x x

_"There's someone I want you to meet."_

That had been Sora's reason for going to see Cloud that day, though really, he figured he didn't need much of a reason anymore to see the blonde. The two of them had somehow forged their bizarre relationship out of absolutely nothing, from being passing strangers on a bus to... well, to good friends, it seemed. But then why was it that Sora's heart had somehow, for some reason clenched painfully inside his chest when Cloud had brought up this guy he wanted Sora to meet? To be perfectly honest, Sora didn't want to meet anyone. He wanted to spend his afternoon pondering over a cup of tea with Cloud, dammit. Not Cloud and some loser he knew nothing about.

His fear was only increased tenfold when he found out where exactly it was that Cloud lived. The two of them had had a light lunch at a cute little diner sandwiched in between two massive corporate buildings in the downtown branch of the city, Sora tagging along with Cloud to his apartment afterwards as promised. To meet this stranger. Yeah. But Sora could only swallow thickly and pray Cloud wouldn't ask any stupid questions when he nearly froze outside of _Kairi's_ apartment complex.

Oddly enough, it was Sora who popped the first stupid question.

"W-what are we doing here?" His words came out as more of a terrified little squeak actually, but he forced himself to ignore Cloud's quizzical look and curious response.

"Well, I _do _live here and I thought we'd go meet Sephiroth like we'd planned on...?"

Needless to say, Sora was absolutely relieved when he saw Cloud's finger move over and past the button for the fourth floor in the elevator. Instead, it landed on the fifth and pressed gently inwards, sending the box trolling up the line.

"Sephiroth?" Cloud called out into the dark and dreary apartment. Even when he flipped the light-switch, it really didn't do a whole lot to help the sad situation at hand. The place was clean-- absolutely spotless, to be more precise-- but it looked almost as though nobody lived there. No posters, no mirrors, no nothing on the walls. The counters were empty and clear, the chairs neatly tucked under the small and conservative kitchen table. the only thing that seemed to defy this emptiness was a small collection of framed pictures assembled on an end table in the living room.

Cloud excused himself for a moment, slipped off quietly into an adjacent room that Sora grudgingly figured was the bedroom. Sure enough there came some quiet words from Cloud-- "There you are... Sorry, I didn't know you were asleep... That's okay, you can go back to bed..."

Forcing the words and the soft tone out of his head, Sora instantly honed in on the pictures sitting in the living room. At first, he had absolutely no idea just who the hell these happy people were all supposed to be. _Then again, I guess you're supposed to get that feeling in a home that isn't yours. If you knew everyone, wouldn't _that_ be weird?_

Oh! The pictures were of Cloud. Well that was shocking. Sora had thought Cloud was a complete asshole to everyone but him. Granted, now that he thought about it, that frame of mind was more than just a little self-centered. But still. It was strange seeing the Cloud Sora knew so well around other people he didn't know at all.

...Like that girl. She kept reappearing in all the pictures. Some pale, slender little thing with this amazingly long, soft-looking hair. Some of them looked like standard tourist photos-- "And here's me and Shirley standing next to the Eiffel Tower... and here we are standing next to Notre Dame... Oh, look! Here's us at Stonehenge!" But there were others, more personal, more intimate somehow.

Sora's favorite had to be of Cloud and that strange girl sitting on the edge of a fountain. Sora wasn't sure who had taken the picture, but it gave this feeling of being completely candid. Cloud and the girl beside him had both of their heads bent over a map Cloud was holding, which, to Sora's endless amusement, just happened to be upside down. They both appeared to be studying the map very hard though, possibly wondering why none of the words made much sense. Sora could see it now. _"Wait, are you sure we bought the English version? Maybe this is Hungarian."_

A gentle tapping on his shoulder jerked Sora out of his mental ramblings before he was really given the chance to get going.

"AH..."

"...Sora?"

"Yes!"

"...Is everything okay?"

"Yes!"

"Are you sure?"

WIth a half smile and a nervous laugh, Sora spun on his heel and pointed one finger at a picture frame accusingly. "...Your pictures," he said. "You look a lot friendlier in these pictures than you do now, yanno. You're always so cold to people. But not to me. How come?"

"No..." Caught off guard, it took Cloud a minute to pick up his metaphorical little head and pop all the thoughts back in there, to try and make sense of them. He didn't get much though. "No reason. I'm not... cold to other people..." _Well, if that wasn't a lie, I don't know what was._

Heaving a tired sigh, Cloud flopped lifelessly onto a worn, but comfy looking sofa, arms stretched out around him on either side. He closed his eyes and tried, for just a moment, to relax, to figure out when he'd gotten so tense and why. But then there was a little shadow across his eyelids, and when they slid apart he found himself staring into the two large baby-blues of a curious little Sora, poking his nose jokingly.

"He-ey Mr. Frownie Face. I want some soda. You have soda?"

"I have wine, if you want to start drinking like an adult."

"I'm plenty adult to drink wine, if_ that's_ what you're getting at! It's just gross. I _hate_ wine. _And_ beer."

"Such an innocent."

"Such a happy boy."

"Coffee, tea, what?"

"Oooh, coffee! Do you have cream?" Cloud shook his head. "Sugar?" Again, an apparent no.

"My coffee is only as black and bitter as my lonely heart," he said with a smirk.

"God, you're so-oo emo. All the time."

"Like you're one to talk."

"So who is that girl in all those pictures with you? Sister, girlfriend...?"

"An old friend." Sora simply continued to look at Cloud expectantly, forcing him to tack on clumsily, "An _old_... girlfriend, really. Sort of."

"Cute." Sora blinked his eyes, laughed at himself for a moment and then tried to clarify as best he could, "You guys were cute together, I mean."

"Yeah, she uh... She was French," Cloud added lamely, clearly just carrying on the conversation in that direction to be polite. But either Sora didn't notice, or he didn't care. Either way, Cloud forgot to be bothered by it as Sora's face suddenly lit up with excitement.

"Whoa, really!" he exclaimed.

"Mm."

"What the hell were you doing over in France, huh? Daaang, I don't think I've ever left this stupid country. Riku dragged me hiking across it this one God-awful time, but still, that's totally not the same. France, France! Awesome!"

"It was okay."

"You speak French?"

"...A little."

"Wow! Say something for me in French!"

"No, really, it's not that big a deal..." Cloud trailed off. Oh, but Sora could tell. For a second, he almost felt experience somehow, _elite _somehow, that he could tell Cloud's pain was not so very far off from his own.

"...You guys have a major falling out or something?"

"Sort of."

"You're closing up on me," Sora said quietly, unable to pull off a tone that didn't sound accussatory. He didn't mean for it to come out that way-- of course he didn't blame Cloud for wanting to keep a private life private and all, but still... Sora was beginning to realize just how little he knew about Cloiud that didn't involve a weather station and a battered old bicycle.

"I'm not... trying to..."

"Hey, don't worry about it! I was just kidding."

"..._L'eau claire_."

"Huh?"

"_L'eau claire._ 'Clear water.' You asked for something French."

"That sounds like eclaire! Eclaires aren't clear water! That's pretty though. I like it when you say it. Most French men sound old and stuffy-nosed. How come you don't?"

"Well, I'm probably not pronouncing it right. I haven't spoken French in a long time."

"Why?"

"Because... I haven't been to France in a long time?"

"Well yeah, but if it's pretty and if you like talking it, you could, oh, I dunno, talk to yourself in French. It'd be kinda cool, 'cause then if someone walked in and they were all like, 'Why the hell are you talking to yourself?' you could say, 'I wasn't talking to myself, I was just practicing my French so I don't get rusty! I have a cousin who lives in France and it's very important that I keep my French skills fluid and l'oh-claire-ish.'"

Cloud could only laugh at this, forcing Sora to grin-- _That's the Cloud I know!_-- and go, "Say something else in French!"

"I don't know..."

"Please?"

"_Peaut-être tu reviendras. Tu prendras par l'épaule... comme hier, quand je voulais.._."

A pleased little smile stretched lazily across Sora's face as he leaned back in the kitchen chair, legs still crossed beneath him. "...Pretty. What's that mean?" he asked innocently.

x x x

_"Cloud, over here!" It was too bad we figured it out too late, I guess. Too late in the game to fix it up. But it was never her fault. Nah, never her fault. She was never broken. She never needed to be fixed up now that I think about it..._

_"Hurry up, Cloud!"_

x x x

"Nothing. Just some line from some stupid thing... It's nothing."

"Are you sure?"

x x x

_"Look, Cloud. Look at all the people out on the water!"_

_"Morons."_

_"Aww, but why would you say that?" Her voice sounded kinda pitiful then, didn't it? But it was still her beautiful voice with that corny French accent. No, not corny. Not... Not stupid. No, she didn't needed help. She was fine the way she was. Always just fine, always beautiful, accent or no._

_"There's a storm coming. They don't belong in the water."_

_"But that is where you are wrong," she said. Her hands came together, one clasped in the other and falling gently against her chest, the picture-perfect romantic staring out onto the English Channel. "They go in the water now because of the storm. The waves are fun, even if they are dangerous. People like dangerous things, fun things. Different, wild things. Don't you feel the same, Cloud?"_

_"Hm. Doesn't matter. Are they even allowed to be swimming here in the first place?"_

_But she just laughed, didn't she? _

_"Does it matter?"_

x x x

_Get out of my head already, damn you... Ugh, what was it Sora said? Am I sure? Sure about what? Oh well..._

"Yes."

"Cloud... are you okay?"

But suddenly Cloud was terrified and he didn't know why. Because of this strange, foreign emotion niggling the farthest reaches of his brain, Cloud was almost completely out of his senses when he did what he did.

"Sora..."

If anyone outside the two of them had been present in the room at that moment, they would have called the ensuing kiss thoroughly unremarkable, perhaps even a bit of a let-down. It was as though their lips had simply grown a little cold and they were just pressing them together in an attempt to warm them up. It was that brief, that chaste-- and it was seemingly just that meaningless. But it was the afterwards that changed them both, in the moment Cloud pulled abruptly away, stung somehow, but not enough to put more than an inch of air between them.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Sora could only stare numbly at the pair of sheer blue eyes opposite of his, shining with regret and... and... _What is that? Want, need...? Want, maybe. Not need. Never need._ But still Sora made no movement to stop Cloud as the blonde reached up a tentative hand, pressing his calloused fingertips against Sora's lips softly and brushing sideways. Completely and utterly weird, yes, but there was something in the action that managed to break Sora's heart and fortify its sad and lonely little self all in one fell swoop.

Was Cloud just... trying to wipe his kiss off of Sora or what?

"You don't have to be sorry," Sora said. The movement of the skin beneath his fingertips caused Cloud to snatch his hand away before turning his gaze towards the floor. _God, please don't hate me..._ And Sora so desperately wanted to use that moment to put a hand on Cloud's shoulder, to smile and say he understood because he _did_ understand-- he really did! He, Sora, the oblivious optimistic moron actually understood someone else's fucked up life because he was finding more and more that his own getting to be just the same.

And he would have, he could have, he should have taken that moment... Had he not suddenly winced in pain and collapsed forwards, slamming his forehead sharply on the corner of the table with a dull thud, sending the world sideways-- _calloused fingertips against his lips softly and brushing sideways_-- into some hazy gray darkness.

Sora's last coherent thought came somewhere between utter unconsciousness and the registering of Cloud's startled cry and calling of Sora's name, begging him to be awake. It wasn't anything mind-boggling, anything life-altering. No new world views or ways in which he could return to the world of the living and save both himself and Cloud from the unavoidable DOOM that awaited them in life. No, no, no.

It was just Sora pondering the color of the gray around him-- wondering if it was more of a blue-gray or more of a green-gray. He wasn't quite sure.

It was gone before he could find out, replaced with a dream that made almost as much sense as the color gray.

_Peaut-être tu reviendras. Tu prendras par l'épaule... comme hier, quand je voulais.._.

_Maybe you'll come back. You'll grab me by the shoulder... just like yesterday, when I wanted to..._

x x x

He sat on the ceiling.

No. Correction. He stood on the floor, but the ceiling had become the floor, the floor the ceiling. In fact, the ceiling felt strangely familiar. It was almost the exact same shade as the ceiling of Kairi's apartment. One single look up was all it took to confirm it-- yep. There was the smooth hardwood, the plush, stylish rugs, leather sofas. All upside down and apparently just dangling in the air, suspended precariously by little baby threads. He held out one hand, palm facing upwards, and was surprised to find his skin speckled with rain, droplets sliding down from the pseudo-ceiling with an unnatural slowness about them.

Really, the entire thing made Sora terribly dizzy, and he had to sit down for a moment to gather his wits back about him. Water began to gather in shallow puddles, a steady drizzle continued to fall. Soon the puddles were pooling together, a growing mass of water, shallow at first, but growing deeper still.

_Deeper still._

"Cloud?" Sora called out. He didn't honestly know why he didn't call out for Kairi-- he was in her apartment after all. But then there he was, a shadow of something just beyond the doorframe. Turning away and moving deeper into the bedroom.

"Cloud!"

And cannonballs rained down from above, but suddenly they were harmless. Cloud's mouth was the only thing that gave him away-- he smiled. And next to him stood Kairi, not just any Kairi, but a younger, livlier Kairi. Her socks didn't match, her eyes were bright enough to set something on fire, to blow it all up. But she was so happy.

And just before the cannonballs could hit the water, they were turned into blitzballs-- hundreds of little tiny blitzballs content to just bob merrily around the surface, jostling one another for space. In _spite_ of himself, Sora laughed. He looked up at Kairi. De_spite_ what he knew he'd done to her, he smiled. He looked towards Cloud. To _spite_ him, he held out both hands, he grinned, he called out his name.

And to shock him, Cloud stepped forward, obediently, plunging up to his knees into the water.

_"If me being like this brings me closer to you..."_

_"If me being in danger brings us closer together..."_

_"Don't rescue me." _

But the cannonball-blitzball-- things. They weren't so harmless anymore. They were pounding holes out of the floor--_ the ceiling?_-- breaking up the world and furniture falling down around them, drowning the water. All that expensive leather...

Cloud stopped in his tracks, hesitated. And suddenly he was like that kid caught in the middle of the street, cars coming at every direction...

"Cloud, come here!"

No sign of movement. Even the rain, the water, the falling world had just frozen dead in its place.

"...Please, Cloud!"

A faltering little smile and a rose tossed over the water. _Catch_, Cloud whispered. But Sora missed, reached up for the flower and fell backwards instead, falling in over his head, submerged in water. Opening his eyes beneath the surface, Sora could see the rose hit the water just a few inches above him, the petals shooting apart from one another, leaving a plain and battered green stem sinking down to meet him.

Things started moving again, but they were too distorted by the surge of water for Sora to tell what was going on. He didn't even know why he didn't push back to the surface-- he needed air, didn't he?

But suddenly the water grew still again, eerily calm and crystal clear. The only thing that forced Sora into admitting that, yes, the water was still there, was a jet of bubbles that lazily streamed from his mouth when he opened it to speak. Granted, he didn't know what he'd been planning on saying, but being underwater made talking pretty much pointless, he figured. Then, looking up, he could see Cloud standing just above him, suspended somewhere above the water, not falling through. Some kind of godlike grace or something? On Cloud? Yeah right.

His arms, Cloud's arms, reached downwards into the water then, liquid parting easily around his hands, his wrists, his forearms. Both arms, reaching out for Sora. Not just one hand. Both.

Sora had to close his eyes when things moved again, when furniture started falling from the ceiling and the rain started falling in torrents on the surface. Cannonballs and blitzballs and leather sofas-- the water was too distorted to see Cloud's face anymore, but his arms, his hands, were still there waiting, even through the hell of the end of the world.

Don't rescue me.

_Crash._

Don't rescue--

_Crash._

Me.

Don't--

_Crash._

Me.

Don't crash on me.

x x x

When Sora came back around from his otherworldly experience, he was relatively disturbed to feel something very cold, very slimy, and very smelly dribbling down his cheek. He instantly ruled out three things. Tears, because they weren't that smelly, blood, because it was that cold, and drool, because, slimy as Sora's drool was, it just wasn't that slimy.

Well, Sora discovered that he was only partially right on that last one as he opened his eyes. No, _his_ drool wasn't that slimy. But cat drool? Apparently so.

Situated on his chest was the worst looking animal Sora had ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on. The thing was balding in about ten thousand different spots on its body (pretty much making up its _entire_ body, yes) and had virtually no fat or muscle attached to its knobbly bones. A smattering of telltale drool ringed the cat's tiny mouth and whiskers, and when its tail moved, it did so in an unsteady, jerky pace, twitching uncomfortably and dangerously close to Sora's crotch. In that instant, Sora feared he would never be capable of having an erection again.

So it only stands to reason that he began bursting into hysterical cries of, "_Cloooud! _ CLOUD!"

"Sora!" Cloud came hurrying frantically out of the kitchen, phone in one hand, a damp washcloth in the other. He looked far more haggard than Sora had ever seen him before, but seemed relieved to meet Sora's eyes, despite his weary little shout of, "Sephiroth! Get off him!"

Wait a minute. THAT was Sephiroth! That _thing_!

Cloud looked towards the ground, towards the hand holding the phone, then the hand holding the washcloth. He put both on the kitchen table and hurried back in to daintily pull the (sorry excuse for a) cat off of Sora's chest-- yet he did all of it with a determined air which said, '_I'm not going to look at you because you might burn my eyes out with hate!'_

Sora was worried.

Cloud was just embarrassed.

"Are you okay?" he finally managed to ask. He was looking pointedly at Sora's shoes, not Sora's face. And in the back of his mind he was again noticing their yellow color. How peculiar.

"I'm fine, I just... I'm really, _really _sorry about that. I don't know what happened, I just..." Sora trailed off numbly, not entirely certain Cloud was even listening to him, judging by the way the blonde's gaze remain so fixated on nothing important. _What the hell is he looking at anyway?_

_Huh. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with yellow shoes before. So... bright._

_Are my feet really that big? ...Gah! Way to be self-conscious Sora. Way to sound like a stupid girl._

_His legs are so skinny and girly. But not in a bad way. Just in a different way. They're hardly even hairy. Christ, he sure doesn't look like he's in his twenties-- that's for sure._

_Ugh... how embarrassing..._

_How embarrassing..._

Thankfully, Sora took the time to notice the clock at that moment. Two forty-two, two forty-two-- no, three, two forty-three... Three! Doesn't Cloud have to be at work by three? At this, Sora jolted completely upright, nodding his head urgently and saying, "I'm fine, really, really! You're gonna be late!"

Looking towards the clock as well, Cloud cursed, apologized, and disappeared into his bedroom for just a brief moment, reappearing not half a minute later with a tie draped over his shoulders, now clad in a pair of dark slacks and a neat button-up shirt, though the buttons were still far from buttoned.

...Suddenly, Sora's shoes seemed to interest him too, seeing as he stared at them the entire time Cloud hopped around looking for his work shoes, apologizing and tying his tie and buttoning his buttons and looking for shoes and apologizing and tying and buttoning... Somehow Sora felt he should be laughing. Somehow Sora felt bad that he wasn't.

Meanwhile, somewhere down the hall, a woman was complaining loudly to her son-in-law in spitfire Spanish about the mattress they were trying to cram into the second of two elevators (the first, naturally, being blocked by the woman's insane amount of pointless carpetbag luggage.) ...Or rather, the mattress her poor son-in-law was trying to cram into the elevator. He only spoke maybe ten words of Spanish, three or four phrases-- "Thank you, no thank you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't hit me, Moira!"-- none of which could help him in his current situation.

All of this was completely unimportant to both Cloud and Sora, who came hurrying down the hall at breakneck speed, taking one look at the disasterous situation the elevators were in and speeding right on by, despite the pleading look the tragic son-in-law shot their way. The pair took the flight of stairs down to the floor below them, the fourth floor, racing down that hallways and towards the empty and mattress-less, luggage-less, Spanish-mother-in-law-less elevators.

"Sora, you don't have to run after me, really!"

_But I need to _tell _you something, dammit!_

Clearly a great many things were happening all at once, for as the son-in-law had been cramming the mattress in the second fifth-story elevator and as Cloud and Sora had been shooting down a flight of stairs, huffing and puffing and _I can't believe I passed out his table after all that-- I haven't even explained to him, told him it was okay, told him--_ and _I can't believe I did that, what an idiot, for God's sake, just--_

Yes, while all this had been going on, Kairi had just been walking out of her apartment door, fully intending to deliver the mail she'd picked up by accident. In the moments of calm before the storm, at least her thoughts were somewhat sane. _Well, at least _some_ loser benefits from my stupidity._

She ambled over to the apartment door beside hers and knocked once before simply sliding the small stack of mail under the doorway. ...Well, it wasn't like anyone said she was very close to her neighbors.

And yet that was when she heard the frantic voices coming from the stairwell, distant at first, but growing closer and growing louder...

"Who cares if I'm late. If you pass out on me, I'll be in deep shit."

"Says who?"

"Listen, are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine. I swear."

_...That... voice..._

"Okay..." The frantic footsteps stopped suddenly (we're retracing _our_ footsteps in the story, in case you couldn't tell-- revamping a few things here and there, no Spanish-less elevators just yet, just them, just the stairwell.) Just Cloud standing there, searchingly, stupidly, and feeling all the worse for it. "Um, about the--"

_I should have told him it was okay... _ But that moment had passed by a long time ago. Cloud was going to be late, Sora didn't know what to say, and everything which hadn't been planned to happen was still perfectly and tragically as unplanned as ever. "Don't worry about it." Sora forced a cheery smile and nodded once, twice. "...Go on, already! You're late."

_Oh God! That's Sora's voice! ...But. Who's he with? Nonono! No time for that now, Kairi! No time for questions! Time for hiding! Crap, crap, crap..._ Letting out a tiny little wail before hurriedly clamping her little hands over her little mouth, Kairi did a brief shuffling dance from slippered foot to slippered foot before nearly running smack into her closed apartment door.

"Right..." Down the hallway, Cloud was shooting Sora a quiet, doubtful look. It was sincere, but more sincere than he meant for it to be. It was meaningful, but more meaningful than he meant for it to be. In short, it was overkill and it only made him more embarrassed to realize that it was all just too much too soon. "Bye, Sora."

The door was closed.

...The door. Was closed.

How did her door close? Since when did her door close by itself? Growing absolutely frantic now, Kairi wrestled madly with the sad little door handle, beating against it childishly when it became obvious it just wouldn't cooperate. _What the--? I locked myself out. I locked myself out of my own apartment. Riku's in the shower. CRAP!_

In a last-ditch effort to save her sorry sense of pride, Kairi quickly scanned the hallway, her eyes coming to rest on her last hope.

Without any second thoughts, Kairi did the only other thing she could think of. She threw open the dumbwaiter door, crawled inside, and prayed for all she was worth that there weren't too many spiders living in its chamber. Clinging desperately to the fraying rope holding the rigged waiter together, Kairi listened anxiously to one set of footsteps hurrying past, heavier and louder-- _He's wearing dress shoes. Not Sora. Damn, Sora. _Leave_ already!_

Kairi remained balanced on the soles of her feet for as long as she could, putting as much weight on the dangling rope as possible. She couldn't be exactly sure, but something told her that the moldy smell in the dumbwaiter was coming from the wooden surface she was perched on. _Heck, I don't even know how these things work. ...Is it like a pulley or something?_

Though she would realize how stupid it was at a later time, Kairi... wasn't exactly in a clear frame of mind. She wasn't exactly in any frame of mind. She hadn't been in one for several weeks. So when she tugged hesitantly on one length of rope, she naturally wasn't expecting a sharp jolt, twist and _CRACK! _as the wood splintered and gave way beneath her, tumbling down... down... down... before hitting the ground four stories below.

And the only thing keeping Kairi from sharing the fate of the wood?

The little rope she was dangling to while hollering at the top of her lungs, "HOLYSHIT, HELP! Heee-eeelp!" in between one or two rather shaky little sobs (which, for the record, she still had no control over-- lack of frame of mind and all that.)

Ironically enough, Cloud couldn't hear her cries for help because the elevator door had just closed. He was busy trying to distract himself by imagining the poor sap and mattress in the elevator beside him. He was busy trying to distract himself and get his thoughts away from the kitchen floor, where he'd dropped them not so very long ago.

So it should only make sense that it was Sora who reached in moments later and pulled her out, no second thoughts, no questions asked.

Whether she was crying because she'd just lost one cute little silk-lined slipper or because she'd just narrowly avoided plunging down four stories on a rotting wooden board, Kairi wasn't sure. Perhaps she was crying because she was seeing Sora again for the first time in weeks and seeing Sora single again for the first time in seven years. Not as her boyfriend, but as her friend who was a boy.

For safety's sake, we'll say it was a combination of all these factors that lead to Kairi sniffling loudly in the empty hallway-- empty, except for her and Sora.

"Kairi..." And though Sora had every right to ask tens of thousands of questions-- _What in the hell were you doing in there? Why are you crying _now-- He settled for just one. "Kai, hey... A-are you okay?" Just one, followed by another. "...It's my fault, isn't it?"

Instead of responding, Kairi just proceeded to wipe dejectedly at her eyes and cover her nose, all in the same pitiful gesture. She sniffled loudly and proceeded to look to the floor, only crying harder as she noticed her missing slipper once, curling her one bare foot behind the other and rubbing her ankles together. She was painfully aware of the awkwardness growing between them and she honestly couldn't find any way to put the blame on anyone but herself.

Clearly Sora had come to visit a friend... who wasn't Kairi. Their meeting was no Sora's fault, but Kairi's for not getting out of the way, for locking herself out of her own apartment, and then for trying to foolishly convince herself that she could hide in a who-knows-how-ancient dumbwaiter.

"Why didn't you come back to me after Riku said no?" The question rolled off her tongue with surprising ease, somehow managing to work its way around the painful knot forming in the dead center of her throat. Though she still refused to meet Sora's eyes, she could see his hands at his sides, fingertips drumming in some sort of nervousness, arms moving awkwardly as though he didn't know whether to pull her closer into a hug or push her further away to put more space between them.

"...I..." He started, he faltered. "Kairi, listen, I wanted to, but..."

"But what?"

"...Don't think I never had feelings for you, Kai..."

"How I wish I could believe you."

"...You're a forgiver, Kairi. Please."

Sora... wasn't entirely sure what he meant with those words. They had just sort of made themselves up in his head and rolled along down a few tunnels and out his mouth. Maybe they were the byproducts of a new breed of microscopic mite. ...Maybe they weren't.

Regardless of the words or their origins, Kairi seemed moved nonetheless.

"Just say you're sorry, y-you big dummy."

"I'm sorry."

"I will ask you to explain it to me someday..."

"I know."

"And you will... when I ask, won't you?"

"Always."

"Thank you." A nervous little laugh ripped free from Kairi's mouth while she fanned herself with both hands, looking ridiculous and... well, quite like that absurd version of Kairi Sora had spent his childhood growing up with and making fun of. All in good fun. "Well!"

"You're okay, right?" Sora asked.

"Y-yeah, yeah. How about you, huh? Y-you're a little watery yourself." Now that Kairi mentioned it, Sora realized he actually was starting to cry a little. Perhaps more than a little. And Kairi _had_ always thought it strange how easily it was to make Sora cry. But in that moment it was the simplest of things-- both of them laughing and crying at the same time and neither caring about which was what gender and which was required be social law to be the stronger, the braver, the more compassionate.

"Hehe..."

_"Don't ever change!"_ Both of them blurted out the words at the exact same moment, the exact same breath, pitch, and depth to their voice. It was ruled out by the laughter shared between the two, followed by a promise.

_"I won't!"_

In the silence that followed, Sora instantly began to think of it, the last time he had stood in that very same spot, right outside Kairi's doorway with a very similar problem. I had a bad dream and now I think I'm in love with my male friend. Please help? And though he wasn't sure if it was okay and he wasn't sure if it was some sort of wound that shouldn't be re-opened, Sora... wasn't exactly sure where else he could turn to.

So he said it.

"I had another weird dream."

"...About Riku?" Sora shook his head. The two of them stood there another long moment, suddenly awkward, suddenly afraid. But... the moment passed. Sora laughed a little and pulled out his spare key dangling it between his thumb and forefinger triumphantly.

"I was planning on giving it back, you know," he said in all honesty.

Kairi just smiled. "Come on in. Riku's here, but he's taking a shower. We'll look it up, okay?"

"Okay."

The moment Sora stepped through the door and the moment it clicked shut behind him, he found Kairi in his arms once again, and for a split second he was terrified. His mind couldn't take two insane people kissing him in one day, after all. But Kairi's breath by his ear was not seductive, not the least bit sexual. It was, in the end, just Kairi standing on her tip toes, one foot in a little silk slipper and the other foot bare, whispering, "Things are changing, can't you tell? I can tell now, now that we're okay again. Things are changing... Isn't it exciting?"

Sora wasn't entirely sure if he would call the whole muddle of his current life 'exciting,' but... Kairi had a point. Things _were_ changing. And even as she flew away from Sora just seconds before the bathroom door was flung open, he still managed to get a good grip on her words and her warmth. He made sure to lock them away in case he ever needed them, because he'd learned from experience that he would, one day, need them after all.

Of course, all warmth and fluff was immediately forgotten at the sight of Riku combing his hair in Kairi's--

"...Riku. **What **are you _doing_! That is **my** bathrobe! Get out of it!"

"But it's pink and satin."

"_Mine!_"

"It looks better on me."

"Miii-iiine!"

x x x

The next day found Sora and Cloud situated in Sora's dinky little house once more, each of them trying to figure out a way to approach the topic of The Kiss without being too painfully obvious about it. Sadly, Sora wasn't well-educated when it came to such tactics.

"So uh... I-I was talking to Kairi and Riku the other day..."

_"Sora, who was it you were seeing here anyway? I didn't see him around."_

_"Oh, um... just a friend, really. He's just a friend."_

_"Heh. Doesn't sound like a friend to me. Unless you mean the really friendly kind of friend who always has one hand in your pants."_

_"Riku! Don't _say_ that!"_

"Oh? You're all okay again?" Cloud looked up from his empty mug which he'd been studying closely for the past fifteen minutes, convinced that some sort of divine message would come leaping out from the formations of the coffee granules left behind. But still he couldn't keep his mind under control. _I guess this means you won't be needing me around anymore, huh...?_

"Yeah! We're okay, I mean. I guess things are still a little awkward, but..." Sora nodded his head several times before finally getting out the words, "It's good."

"Yeah..."

"I think I may have accidentally told them you were my boyfriend, though."

In the ensuing silence, it was all Sora could do to keep from closing his eyes entirely and just begging Cloud to "Leave now, before I humiliate both of us-- me for being an ass and you for knowing such an ass!" But instead, Sora just slid his fingertips around the rim over his mug, over and over and over again, a soft hum building up within the movement as he talked on at lightning speed...

"Sorry! I meant to fix it, but they wouldn't stop talking about it and then it got too late and I got freaked out so I left, but they still think that and please believe me, I really did try to correct them, but I sort of didn't talk loud enough or something, even though for a second there they were just kind of staring and everything but I didn't know what to say because I didn't want to tell them how bummed out I'd been because then they'd just be worried or angry or something and I didn't want to upset them but I just ended up making things worse and more confused and-- and-- and--"

Cloud honestly thought someone had taken some scissors to his windpipe, because suddenly he felt just about ready to keel over and die. Yep. Sounded like a plan to him, alright. But dying or living, Cloud managed to barely grate out the words, "...D-do you want to be?"

Sora blinked. Scared. Tragic. "...Be what?"

Cloud paled, then darkened. Pink. Embarrassed. And angry for being pink and embarrassed because those were very un-Cloud-like things to be. "Nnn-nevermind! Coffee?"

"Yes please!"

"Cream, sugar?"

"Why not!" Suddenly, a favor! The telephone rang out monotonously and Sora was all too happy to pounce on it, nearly sending his coffee mug flying in the proccess. "Just a sec!" _THANK GOD FOR PHONES!_

Cloud reached out a hand to steady the mug, but only found that his shaking hand didn't really improve the situation all that much. So of course the telephone worship continued between the two of them. _Thank God for telephones._

"Hello!"

"Whoa there, didn't know you were that eager to talk to me, huh Sora? You sure you're not goin' all gay on me?"

"Oh, hey Tidus."

"...Love you too, man. In that great best-friend kinda way. Jackass. Hey listen, I was thinkin' we could get together today, huh? Whaddya say? We'll throw the old blitzball around, just get familiar with it again. Shouldn't be too hard for pros like us, right? HAH! Then later we could go look into that job, remember?"

"Uh, I-I'm not sure, Tidus... I mean, I've kinda got company over right now and..."

"Well bring 'em along! The more the merrier!"

"...I'm not sure if Cloud would really--"

"WHOA, Strife's there? Like, with you? Right now? Well come on, man! What're you waiting for! I'm sure that guy could use a little blitz-- help him work that ten-foot pole out of his ass, if you know what I mean."

"Tidus..."

...But in the end, would could Sora do? After all, there was no better way to kill the silence and tension between him and his male... whatever-Cloud-was, than to spend an afternoon playing blitzball with 'the guys.'

...Right?

...Wrong.

(x) (x) (x)

Cloud's French words (not clear water, but the line he later says) are actually from a line of poetry. ...I can't remember what poem it was, but I'll get back to you on it. If the conjugations of the verbs are messed up, deal with it-- I haven't taken French in a year and reworking that line was still difficult!

In the next chapter, we will not only see Cloud playing blitzball (and I use the term 'play' very, very lightly here), but we will also see Riku & Kairi's Afternoon of Shopping and Gender Confusion, and more of Kairi, Riku, and the strange company they keep.


	6. Yansewers, Clarity

**Quoshoopy**

'Yansewers, Clarity'

_I don't think it was ever a matter of me being clinically depressed or whatever the hell. But I don't think I was okay when I came into this world._

_There's something fundamentally wrong with you, with your psyche, when your mother does not love you. The milk tastes sour, the smell of her keeps you awake and clings to you and reminds you of the uncaring, of the lacking in your tiny little life. Her touch is cold and her gaze is nothing more than a blank stare, looking through you to the other side, to her hands cradling your spine as you sit helpless in her lap._

_Honestly, I can't say why it was that my mother didn't love me. I was the second of four children-- three sons and one daughter. That was the hand dealt out to my parents and even now I can't see what was so terribly wrong with it. None of us were ugly kids, none of us were bratty kids. We each went through our terrible twos and our terrible teens seemingly unscathed-- I asked my older brother about it and he even vouched for me on this._

_But Zack couldn't understand. Of course he couldn't understand. The love was there for him. The love was there for all of them. All but me._

_I once asked my old man why Mom didn't love me. He just looked at me funny, pushed his spectacles up his nose, and turned that page of the newspaper, holding it up so it hid his face. "I don't know what you're talking about. Get those silly ideas out of your head, boy." That's all he said. But he said it in a voice that was just ever so slightly... afraid._

_When I was five and my parents' third child-- my sister-- was just two, I remember listening to my mother as she talked to the wailing kid, trying to calm her down. She was so patient, so amazing... I have yet to see another parent handle a tantrum with the skill and finesse with which my mother handled those of her three real children._

_"Slow down," she'd say. "Slow down, babe. Use your words to talk to me, not your tears. Shh... slow down. I'm not gonna talk to you 'til you talk to me. Use your words, not your tears. Slow down, slow down..." Over and over again, firm, but soothing. The kid could be face-down on the floor of a supermarket, smack dab in the middle of a total meltdown and with a few of these words, with the touch of a hand, up they'd go and back to smiles and sunshine._

_But I never remember her saying these things to me. I asked Zack if he ever remembered when I was that young, if she ever spoke to me like that. "I don't remember that long ago, you dick," he'd say. "Mom probably just picked it up after raising a couple kids. You know, parenting skills. Chill, it's not like it's a big deal or anything."_

_And I guess it wasn't a big deal. Or at least, it didn't seem like one. I made myself think it was okay, through elementary school and well into high school. I made plans for myself, I made goals. When I was in eighth grade, I won this writing contest at school and I ran home and told my mom about it. She gave me a hollow sort of half smile and a "Good job," whereas any other child would have gotten an ecstatic grin and sloppy kisses. But it meant so much to me then... I decided to become writer._

_I would live that romantic life-- if I couldn't find love in my family, I'd look elsewhere. I'd live the American dream, but I wouldn't live it in America. I'd leave if I had to, I'd leave and find myself, find love, find fortune, and anything else out there._

_My brilliant plan wasn't so damn brilliant after all. I don't really know what I was thinking now that I take the time to sit for a minute or two or three and... well... think about it._

_I'd always loved France. Well, not the France you're thinking. Paris was a goddamn hellhole, but you should see the countryside there. Storybook wonderland, the French countryside. _

_The first time I went there was in high school, strangely enough. Nah, it wasn't with my parents. It was this trip my English prof wanted to go on. He only taught me when I was in my frosh year, but I didn't get to go when he asked me that year. How come? Well, my parents sure as hell weren't going to foot the two-thousand-dollar bill to send me over and give me housing for two weeks. Nah, it took me three damn years working tables at a Middle Eastern restaurant down the street just to pay for it. And let me tell you right now, that job was a pain like no other. I sure don't look Middle Eastern and restaurants have images to uphold you know. One slip-up and they would've kicked me out._

_But my senior year, I had finally saved enough and the old prof was still running kids back and forth on this field trip kinda thing he had going on spring break. I went, was amazed, and told myself I had to come back. Well, like hell it was just going to be that easy-- it'd taken me three damn years to afford a two-week trip there. Somehow the math just wasn't on my side. _

_See, the real reason I fell in love with France and the real reason I wanted to go back so damn bad was all because of this one chick. No, not chick. She was a girl-- a real nice girl. And this one evening, me and a couple of the other guys in the group snuck out. I wasn't really sure about it-- if we got caught or if something happened, the poor prof was gonna take the blame. I went anyway, figuring that the least I could do was try and prevent shit from hitting the fan._

_It sure was something else. Four culture-deprived American kids trying to navigate their way to a can-can house with only four words of French between them. To this day I still don't know how we did it. But we sure didn't find any Moulin Rouge. Instead it was just this run down old chateau-- boarded up windows, cheap wine, the whole nine yards. But the rest of the guys seemed to know what they were doing. Somehow. It just made them seem even more immature, in my opinion. But that's just me._

_People who tell you about love at first sight are idiots. I didn't believe in it then and I don't believe in it now. Lust at first sight? Sure. Maybe. I don't know. But not love. Never love. So when I saw her for the very first time, I didn't love her. Get that, if nothing else. She was this scrawny little nothing dressed just like the rest of them-- too much make up and everything pushed up way too high for it to look natural. After the show, the four of us got to head back and mingle with the girls. Probably a perk of the boys having money, but I was never really sure on that. They all paired themselves off, some with two girls, some with even three. All curvy things with squealing, nasty kinds of voices._

_I guess they left me her figuring she was some sort of runt. A little flatter, a little paler, a little quieter. I thought she was boring. She thought I was intriguing. And she said so, even. Well, sort of._

_"You are... intelligent, yes?"_

_"...Uh, I wouldn't say so myself, no."_

_"...You speak French?"_

_"Not much."_

_"I see. What is your name?" She said it all as slow as could be, this rounded sort of French accent making each word so weird, so different. But damn did she make the effort._

_While the other kids must have been out getting laid, I was sitting back in the empty dressing room with Aerith, sipping a glass of mineral water and proceeding to have the most awkward two-hour conversation of my young life. She wanted to know everything-- where I had come from, what my family was like, what my school was like, what I wanted to do with my life. But in that split second, it was like everything I knew was just gone. The slate wasn't wiped clean-- it was just flipped over, and I was staring at an empty cork backing._

_If anything about it makes sense, I guess that part does. That minute in which I forgot who the hell I was, what the hell I was doing, and what the hell I thought I wanted out of life-- what the hell I thought I wanted to **do** with my life. Like hell anyone knows what they ever want to do with their life. Ninety-nine percent of the world is just winging it._

_So I told her._

_"I'm not really sure," I said. "I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what I'm good at. No one's ever taken the time to tell me."_

_"What do you like doing?"_

_"I don't know. Writing, I guess."_

_"Do you like talking?"_

_"Not really."_

_"Do you like singing? Ballet?"_

_"Uh, no. Not me."_

_"Do you like people?"_

_"...I don't know.'_

_"I see."_

_I couldn't help but feel that I was answering every damn question wrong-- I knew I was. But what was I supposed to do? No one had ever really bothered to ask me this sort of crap before. I couldn't just blow her off with a bunch of lies and half-assed-truths. Even if I thought I'd never see her again, somehow I just couldn't bring myself to lie to the damn girl._

_When I got into college, my English professor told me to give up my dream of being an author-- I had no remarkable talent in the field and would show more flair in the the career of a janitor than that of an author. As simple as that, I dropped my creative writing courses and abandoned the dream without a second thought._

_I went back to France a few years later, still having done absolutely nothing with my life and still having no idea what it was I really wanted to do in the first place. But I ran into the girl again. I made a stupid mistake-- one of those mistakes where you put everything on the line and risk getting nothing back. _

_I got nothing back. One dumb thing led to another. _

_But I get distracted._

_I wonder what ever made me think I'd really--_

"Cloud!"

The all-seeing weatherman was momentarily blinded, struck upside the face with a very large, very blunt, and very painful blitzball. With a whimpered little curse, he keeled straight over, sprawled on the park grass, hands cupped to his poor, defiled nose.

"Cloud! Shit, are you okay?"

"Hahahaaa, oh man, Strife! Just like that Brady kid, right? Marsha, Marsha, _Mar_sha!" Tidus seemed to get some sort of morbid joy out of Cloud's agony, cackling gleefully and clutching his own nose in between howls of a falsetto rendition-- "_'Oh_, my_ nose_!'"

Meanwhile, Sora peered worriedly over the fallen blonde, wincing visibly as Cloud opened his eyes. With their gazes locked, there was very little to be left unsaid. Their silent conversation went something along the lines of: '_You little shit, I can't believe I let you drag me into this.' 'I am so sorry.' 'Oww.' 'I am **so** sorry.'_

As if that wasn't bad enough, their actual physical, real, out-in-the-open conversation just had to be ten times worse.

"Cloud, let me see it. Is it broken?"

"New."

"New?"

A furious shake of the head.

"Cloud, let me see. It could be broken. Is it bleeding?"

"Stobbit, Sowa."

Prying Cloud's stubborn hands away from his nose, Sora only leapt backwards in horror as he caught sight of the stream of blood gushing from Cloud's nose, smearing across his hands. Growing angrier and redder by the second (whether from the blood or from the embarrassment, Sora couldn't tell), Cloud staggered to his feet and turned swiftly on his heel, storming across the park. Several yards away, he tried to brush his arm casually against his nose, only succeeding in bloodying his shirt sleeve and worsening the look of his face.

Tidus was still clutching his sides, doubled over in hysterics when Sora turned on him and suddenly snapped, "Stop laughing, Tidus! It _isn't_ funny!"

_So much for trying to put the awkwardness of last night behind us! Damn, I didn't think Cloud could possibly be this bad at playing... he can't even catch! And now he's hurt... and bleeding... everywhere. So much blood... ugh..._

Catching up to Cloud wasn't as much of a problem as it could have been, seeing as the two had decided to walk to the park that morning instead of taking Cloud's bike. Falling into step beside the older man, Sora opted to do the smart thing and just shut up for a while, not doing or saying anything other than focusing on the ground in front of him and the simple task of making it into the ground behind him.

Yes, walking could sometimes be a very complicated sort of thing.

x x x

Kairi awoke that morning, eyes still glued shut to the world as she felt consciousness starting to creep up on the peaceful darkness of her still-sleepy mind. Almost instinctively, she fought against wakefulness by burying deeper under the covers, deeper into her pillow, and deeper into the only other source of warmth her bed had to offer. ...Riku.

Sadly, her silver-haired heater had arms and wasn't afraid to use them to shove her away, cursing and whining all the while. "Urgh, get the hell off me. You smell like a girl."

"Nyahh... Dun' you huv a hum of yer own?"

"God, you sound like you have a bad hangover. You didn't even drink anything last night. Are you even awake yet?"

"Nuh."

Heaving a dramatic sigh, Riku placed both arms lazily behind his head, his back against the headboard, his gaze towards the ceiling. "_This_ is why I swore off sleeping with girls. Always with the damn cuddling. The morning after is always made awkward by their lack of stamina and their damn--" Noticing Kairi eyes fly open and her body instantly tense up, Riku had to laugh and tack on, "We didn't have sex, Kairi. _Please_. I have standards."

It was all Kairi could do to stifle the urge of beating her dear friend mercilessly before rolling out of bed. There was something slightly unnerving about waking up to the face of a gay male, but she wasn't quite sure how to phrase this-- so she just left it alone, opting to bustle off to the shower before Riku got a chance to suck up all the hot water. Like some... hot-water-sponge... or... something equally absorbent. Honestly, she figured he should be paying rent for all the time he was spending cramping her style.

_Huh. Do I have a style to be cramping? I don't feel cramped. Just annoyed. _

As she slid into the spray of water, Kairi focused intently on the shower-head peering down at her. Something felt slightly off. Slightly... sort of slightly dead-like. _Sort of slightly dead-like? Maybe I should brush this off as a side-effect of waking up next to Riku. Arrogant jerkface. Thinks he can just_--

"Nyah." Growling and grumbling, Kairi bent down to pick up the bar of soap that had slipped clean out of her hands. She got water in her eyes, nearly slipped on the floor of the bathtub, and ended up clinging to the washcloth rack, hanging on for dear life. And upon picking up the fallen soap, she noticed that one little corner of it had gotten mushed inwards on its fall.

So much for full-circle wholeness.

Kairi pondered the idea of malformed soap bars all through her shower, which she took her merry time with. And when it came to pass that she was squeaky clean and feeling somewhat more awake, she attempted to then cleanse herself of the half-dead feeling she had hanging over her head.

"OWW! KAIRI!"

Walking over towards the bed, Kairi picked up the bar of soap from where it had fallen. Examining it closely, she could only frown as she saw yet another little dent in its surface.

"Riku," she said. "You have a very, very hard head."

x x x

"I'm fine, really, get off."

"You could have a concussion or something...!" More careful prodding. Another heaved sigh. And the sort of thick awkwardness that makes a room hard to breathe in.

"...It's not broken, okay?" Cloud twisted free from Sora's grasp, turning his head away, trying to ignore the sharp stab of pain the movement caused his head. _Could I have mad more of an ass of myself? I can't even catch a stupid ball. ...Stupid, stupid, stupid... And now my nose is swollen to the size of a grapefruit. _

"Cloud..." Sora warily rested one hand on his shoulder, the touch distracting Cloud so he didn't notice the other hand near his face resting on his bruised nose. At least, he didn't notice until his brain started screaming 'painpainpain!' and he could do nothing more that snarl and snap and wrench away from the contact.

"Dammit! Why do people always feel the need to touch it when it hurts?"

The question went unanswered, mostly because Sora had begun to catch onto the idea of rhetorical questions and took a wild guess that that was one of them. Instead, he chose not to move, just watching Cloud carefully. Watching as the blonde seemed to deflate after his outburst, looking at the ceiling with an almost guilty stare. Sora could just barely make out a slight tinge of pink around Cloud's ears-- embarrassment?

"I'm sorry," Sora said quickly.

"Why are you apologizing? It wasn't your fault."

"I get the feeling I've done something wrong."

"...Why?"

"'I'm fine, really, get off?' That was a clue, for starters."

"...Sorry."

"You're..." Sora bit his bottom lip gently before letting it go and mumbling, "You're not upset with me, are you?"

"No, of course not!"

"Good. I'll get you some ice for that, okay?"

Determined to prove to himself that he was not a complete and total wuss, Cloud steered himself upright as Sora left the room, headed for the kitchen. Thankfully, that meant Sora didn't catch the muffled groan of pain, the hands clutching at the head and the muttered, "Oww... owow... shit... ow."

Cloud risked opening one eye and caught a glimpse of the computer screen across the room. He could hear Sora bumbling around in the kitchen, humming to himself in some terribly adorable, terribly Sora sort of fashion, taking his dear sweet time in getting an ice pack ready for his suffering brain-dead buddy in the other room. But Cloud found he didn't even need to draw upon any hidden reserve of compassion to forgive Sora's idle, lazy nature.

Instead, he headed over to the computer, fingers resting upon the keyboard, head pounding, nose throbbing, mind completely not functioning. No better conditions for severely freestyle poetry, Cloud thought. And so he began to type...

_'yekkayekkatay yekkayekka tquinge, trohxe, mdidole._

_yekkarefka, yekkaiwond, stufkeo nud_

_quoshoopy!_'

"Whatcha writing?" Sora asked peering over Cloud's shoulder, going on as thought it was the most normal thing in the world for Cloud to have taken over his computer with his blitzball-beaned thoughts. He handed the ice pack to Cloud, who grinned in thanks and nodded towards the screen, fingertips of one hand still poking idly at the keyboard.

"It's poetry," he explained. "Well, sort of. Read it out loud. Don't hesitate, just read it. It's fun, I promise."

Squinting at the words one the screen, Sora wrinkled his nose and couldn't help but ask, "Is this French?"

"Hah, no way. Far from it. They're non-words."

"Non-words?"

"The idea is that you're supposed to make them mean whatever you want them to mean. Go on, read it."

"...Um. Yeh-kah-yeh-kah-kah-tah-whatta-- what the heck? _How_ is this poetry?"

"You just gotta practice reading it. You'll get the hang of it. It's actually kind of fun, writing and reading it, I mean. Once you get used to it. It just takes some getting used to."

"...You sure you don't have a concussion?"

"Perfectly lucid, as always."

"Huh. ...Well what's that one mean? What's 'quoshoopy'? What's it mean?"

"Whatever you want it to. Make up a definition. It's different for everybody-- or not. I don't know. That's the thing about words. People assign such specific meanings to them. They do it so often, they forget what exactly it is that makes something so unique-- it just becomes routine."

"...Like what?"

"Like... sea-horses. If you didn't know what a sea-horse was called, you could look at it without thinking, 'Oh, I know what that is. That's just a sea-horse. Who cares?' You could look at it like it was something completely new. That's why language sucks sometimes. It cripples us like that. It makes things boring."

"..."

"..."

"...I think you need to lie down."

x x x

Kairi had never had that much of a problem shopping with Riku. The guy had good taste, a powerful eye for bargains, and enough endurance to make it around the mall three times and still be up for lunch afterwards. But there was something about the guy dressing her in a rather questionable pair of pants and studded belts that just bothered Kairi for some unknown reason.

_"Riku, these are leather."_

_"Your point?"_

_"I am so not doing the butch thing."_

_"Come ooo-on. Just try it! I'll buy you some of that god-awful fat-free frozen yogurt you love so much if you do."_

_"...Give me those."_

_"...Hmmm. No, something's not quite right. Let's see. You need a flatter chest, Kai. Definitely. That's the problem."_

_"..._Excuse_ me?"_

_"Maybe ruffle your hair out some. You know. More wild. Sexy-like."_

_"...**What?**"_

Yes, shopping with Riku was bound to have its tiresome moments. But Kairi hadn't been expecting it to go quite so badly...

_"You know, maybe your lack of sexual activity ties into the fact that you were never sexually attracted to Sora."_

_"Shut up, Riku. Of _course_ I was sexually attracted to Sora."_

_"You could be a closeted lesbian."_

_"I like boys, Riku."_

_"So do I. That's why I sleep with them. So come off it, Kairi-- how come you never slept with Sora? Did you really find him that attractive? Ooh, a better question, do you really find me attractive?"_

_"You're _gay_!"_

_"Gay may once have been a synonym for happy, sweetie, but it's_ never _been a synonym for oblivious. It's a _test,_ Kairi. You're avoiding my question and only making me doubt your true heterosexuality more and more."_

_"Riku, stop it, okay! It's not like I_ wanted _to break up with Sora! He broke up with me so he could be with you! It's _your _fault!"_

_"...Cool it, sweetheart, we're in public."_

_"How can you _be _so uncaring!"_

And she had thought it would get better, that both of them had just woken up grumpy and would come to their senses in time. But it didn't get better. It got progressively worse and Kairi couldn't help but feel guilty. Mostly because she found herself having to smother the urge to explode, to punch, kick, or otherwise maim her supposed best friend.

_"It's not like I _asked _for Sora to break up with you, you know. Don't get mad at me."_

_"Riku, you're saying he broke up with me because I wouldn't have sex with him!"_

_"...I said that?"_

_"Well you sure as hell implied as much!"_

_"Oh. I've never heard you curse so much before."_

_"It's called being _upset_!"_

And that was how the two of them had come to a standstill on the stairway, people pushing past them, hurried and annoyed, Kairi looked at Riku and Riku looking at Kairi.

"I thought you were over him. I thought you guys were okay again?"

Narrowing her eyes, Kairi drew her mouth into a bitter little frown, snapping, "We are, but_ we_ aren't. _We_, as in the three of us. Where's _Sora_, Riku? Why isn't he here with us? When was the last time you saw him by yourself? Didn't you guys always used to hang out?"

"Well, yeah."

"So since he told you how he felt, you haven't made any effort to see him at all, have you? And since he broke up with me, I haven't made any effort to him either. We cut Sora off and now we're ready to strangle each other."

"Uh, I don't feel the urge to strangle you."

"Well _I _feel the urge to strangle _you_."

"I'm not understanding."

"Riku, we need to see other people!"

"...Kairi. I don't mean to alarm you, but we were never together."

"No, Riku. I'm _serious._ We can't hang around each other all the time anymore or we're going to kill each other. Or _I'm _going to kill _you _or something!" Completely oblivious to the alarmed looks of fellow shoppers, Kairi forced her scowl away, trying _so hard_ to stay calm. "Look," she said. "You're driving me insane. You're completely burning me out. Are you still fighting with Leon?'

"What makes you ask _that_."

"You are. Okay. Listen. Please. I'm begging you. Go patch things up with him. _Please_. For both of us. I love you dearly, you're one of my best friends, and you know I love spending time with you, but this is just overkill and it's driving me nuts."

"Are you PMSing or something, Kairi? God, this is why I can't stand women."

"Riku--"

"I mean, if it's not the cuddling or the constant need for flowers and kisses, it's got to be the effing PMS."

"RIku."

"If you think about it, women spend a fourth of their years when they're really, I mean '_really'_ sexually active-- they spend a fourth of those years out of commission, busy with--"

"That is IT. Give me that!" Before poor Riku knew what had hit him, his cute little striped shoe bag was gone, the precious box and the precious sneakers inside gone too. Not my Vans! No!

"What the heck kind of friend are you!"

"One who values her sanity! Now you are going to go talk to Leon today, or _these_ are going down the kitchen disposal." Kairi shook the bag in her hand violently for emphasis, making Riku cringe as heard the captive shoes jostling from wall to wall of their cardboard-and-plastic prison.

"You wouldn't," he choked out.

"Do you really want to risk it, Riku? Think about it. Oh, and while you're thinking about it, _don't_ think you can go pretend to talk to Leon and come back later to get your shoes. Trust me. I'll know if you've talked to him or not. Women's intuition and all that. And if you try and lie? Guess what I'll do."

"I hate you."

"I will tie you to a chair, prop your eyelids open with toothpicks, and make you watch while these shoes go into the sink. Slowly. Painfully. Got it?"

"You're fucking insane."

"And I'm fucking serious, too. Now go talk to your boyfriend."

"Kairi!" But she was gone, disappeared into the crowd...

"He is _not_ my boyfriend!" And she had Riku's shoes with her.

"God, I _hate_ women!"

x x x

In the back of Riku's small house was an even smaller house-- an old summer home that had come with the property. The old thing had actually proven to be remarkably useful in keeping a huge stockpile of ceramics in storage, kept safe for summer, when the tourist season's explosion brought Riku more than enough customers to keep him set throughout the rest of the year. His basement was his studio, his summer home his storage space. On more than one occasion, it had occurred to Riku that he could very well be a slave to clay.

Later that evening, tugging the cord centered in the makeshift storage house, Riku plunged the room into darkness, closing the door behind him as he stepped out into the night, one lone vase tucked under his arm. A very strange thought struck him as he stood for a moment, somewhere between one door and the next. His eyes traveled to his neighbor's lot, lying just over the hedge, and his mind began to drift, ever so slowly.

_Weird how I never really see that much of who lives there. Damn nice car. Guess that requires one hell of a job to maintain._

...Still. With several lights glowing warmly from the upper-story windows, it was hard for Riku to not be curious now that he was dead set on the idea. Shifting the weight of the clay vase so it lay more securely in his arms, Riku set his jaw stubbornly and strode across the mere ten yards separating him from the mysterious house next door.

...Of course, once it occurred to him that there was still a hedge in his way, he began to have his doubts.

_I'm not some goddamn Hardy boy for crying out loud. Scaling privacy shrubs and peeping through unknown windows? Hardly classy. But then again... That _car _of their is classy. And if the owner of the car is classy enough... Hm, I detect a plan. Congratulations, self. Once again, you prove your brilliance._

Rather than choosing to set his beloved pottery on the ground, where it would most certainly meet an untimely little end, Riku curled it in towards his chest as he barreled through the hedge in what must have been the most idiotic scheme he'd yet come up with. But he'd seen them do it in the movies-- all those real _swell_ spy movies where ninjas burst through hedge mazes and sever the heads of their unsuspecting victims. It was with a great deal of un-ninja-like cursing that Riku made it across to the other side, nasty little scratches dancing up and down his arms, twigs in his hair and threads poking free from his clothing.

...But miracle of miracles, the _vase_ was still intact!

The backyard was dead silent, but perfectly groomed-- that much was obvious, even in the shade of dark the night provided. A sliding glass door was situated beneath one of the lighted windows-- beside it, a small, decorative stone fountain built onto the side of the house, turned off and empty of any water whatsoever. Inlaid bricks lined a neat, weed-free flower garden, stretching clear from one end of the property to the other. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly like anything Riku had been expecting, seeing as most of the homes in the neighborhood were little family bungalows with owners who had no time for landscaping.

Curiosity-- or some not-so-distant cousin of it-- began prickling at the back of Riku's mind, the very same sort which had driven him through the hedge to the other side in the first place. Vase securely tucked beneath one arm, Riku squared his jaw and strode as confidently as he could over to the dry little stone fountain. _Hah, hardly a challenge for the great Riku. Get real. What moron put this lame-ass thing here? Perfect for me, perfect for burglars. _

With his one free, hand, Riku managed to make his wake scrambling and almost slipping up the side of the fountain. Perched on the very top little disk, he could just grab onto the windowsill above and peer over the edge.

The room was, much like the house's exterior, flawlessly crafted, beautifully organized, and, to Riku's delight, elegantly decorated in only the richest color scheme he'd ever seen. A vast wardrobe stretched across one wall, doors ribbed with a deep red fabric over polished cherry wood, intricately carved and, judging by the looks of it, one heck of an expensive antique. A crimson carpet, golden bedspread laced with embroidered flowers-- _Good lord, these people must be fucking rich! _

Then Riku's eyes finally caught on to a brighter glow. Not the ornate little bedside lamps, but just one light coming through an half-open doorway in the back of the room. A woman's slip hung off the doorknob, white, lacy, and just as annoying as Riku remembered slips being. A shadow came from inside the bathroom, moving as whoever it was did whatever it was they were doing.

So Riku shouldn't really have been as surprised as he was when the figure of a woman appeared seconds later, hairbrush in hand, moving swiftly, deftly through her hair with smooth strokes as she proceeded to cross her bedroom floor. No, Riku really shouldn't have been surprised at all. But he was. Not by the woman's presence, but simply by her... absolutely stunning appearance.

Riku had never seen a woman so beautiful in his entire life. That one shocking conclusion he came to was indeed enough to surprise him.

In fact, he was so surprised that he actually jolted away from the window, vase tumbling out of his grasp just as he tumbled from the top of the little stone fountain. Down both went, and in the split second before he hit the ground, Riku heard the shatter of ceramics and he cursed gravity at all its nine-point-eight Newtons of force. _Damn you straight to hell!_ was followed by a thud, a scream, and then, a whimper.

However, Riku was_ not_ surprised when the window above him slid open and a curious little head popped out. No, he was just embarrassed. ...Embarrassed, and in absolute agony. Nonetheless, he managed to tack on a slightly lopsided grin and force out a half-hearted, _classy _greeting.

"Hey babe."

"Hello."

Clearing his throat, Riku pulled himself to his feet, ignoring his body's screams of protest at the movement. He nodded, he smiled, he played along like nothing was wrong. He said, "Kinda like Romeo and Juliet, huh? This is where I-- I'm Romeo, so I say a little something that goes like, 'You and me, babe, how about it?' And now you, you're _so_ Juliet, so you go, 'Hey, it's Romeo! You nearly gave me a heart attack, kid!' But you don't care 'cause hey-la, your boyfriend's back underneath your window!"

Covering her mouth and laughing quite prettily, the woman quirked an amused little smile and said, "You know, you really ought not to come around in the middle of the night shouting up at people like that."

Riku simply grinned, flinging both arms out to his sides in an exaggerated shrug. "Ah well. Anyway, whatcha gonna do about it?"

"Not much, I don't think. And you are?"

"Your crazy neighbor. You been here a long time and I've never seen you before now. How come? You live some super top-secret kind of undercover life?"

With her elbows resting on the windowsill and her arms dangling over the edge, Riku could catch just the slightest glimpse of cleavage from the swooping curve of the woman's neckline. Some silky kind of nightgown, by the looks of it. Unsurprisingly, the view did nothing for Riku, but he still could not manage to alter his initial opinion-- yes, she was still unbelievably beautiful, whoever the hell she was. Snapped out of his puzzled stupor, Riku looked up as the woman let out a small sound, something that could've easily been mistaken for a sigh as her smile wavered.

"No top secret life here. It's just that I'm not planning on staying forever. It's just business."

"Pfft, _these_ days no one stays around forever anyhow."

A warm sort of silence fell between them, caught in the space above Riku's head and beneath the woman's arms. Riku took the time to breathe in-- he thought he caught a very soft scent of perfume, but could've been mistaken. After a very long and quiet moment, the woman spoke again, this time her voice actually laced with concern.

"Are you_ bleeding_?"

Looking down at his hands, Riku's eyes bulged as he took in the sight of dripping blood. Rather than fainting, as he half expected himself to, he simply laughed it off. "Oh, you mean this? Yeah, just a little cut, nothing big." He held out both hands and waved them around slightly, trying to emphasize his point but only succeeding in making his poor hands throb with a dull and steady pain.

"...You have blood all over you."

"I bleed excessively."

"I can see that."

Cocking her head to one side inquisitively, the woman leaned out of her window just slightly, peering down at Riku and saying, "You know, maybe you're a murderer and you've just finished killing somebody. Maybe that blood isn't even really yours at all."

Riku smirked. "Could be," he said.

"If that's the case, what I should do is invite you in very politely and clean your wounds for you. That way if the blood washes off with no cuts beneath, I'll know you killed someone and can call the police."

"Well I guess that'd be a pretty sensible kind of thing to do."

"Good. Now that we're in agreement on that, you're more than welcome to come inside. I'll be right down."

Obediently, Riku did as he was told. The basement floor of the house appeared to be a work in progress still, most of it piled high with luggage cases, garment bags and cardboard boxes-- some labeled, some not. He could hear some distant patter of footsteps above him, some drawer somewhere opening, then closing, then more footsteps. He started over towards a nearby sofa, then stopped, not wanting to bleed all over the poor woman's furniture.

It was strange when she first came down the stairs, really. Riku hadn't been entirely sure what to expect, but her hair loose and trailing down well past her hips was... definitely not something he'd expected. She wore no slippers, no jewelry, just that simple silk nightgown. In one hand was a bottle of disinfectant, in the other, a package of gauze and bandages. ...Somehow they had a way of making the entire situation seem just a bit more believable.

Especially when the disinfectant came in contact with his his skin. Ow.

If the woman picked up on just how much pain she was causing Riku, she chose not to mention it. She chose not to mention much of anything for several minutes, actually, busying herself with cleaning up cuts and drowning them in the burning liquid that nearly had her dearest neighbor screaming his dearest head off. Instead, he bit his lip and shut himself up, only easing when she spoke.

"You have a very strange way of getting to meet new people," the woman said, not looking up from Riku's hand held in hers, the gauze gently pulling away all the blood, revealing a series of nice red gashes beneath. She shook her head slightly, looking all the more like a mother about ready to lecture the living daylights out of a troublesome son.

Riku, in turn, looked all the more like a discolored cabbage as he fought the urge to be sick. _Ugh... so much blood... Blegh_.

"Well... You're not so normal about it, yourself. Most_ normal_ people wouldn't let a stranger into their house in the middle of the night if they were covered in blood."

She laughed at this, reaching over onto the coffee table and taking a roll of bandages in hand, stretching it out between her fingers and looking at it thoughtfully. Her question came abruptly, awkwardly-- but even then, Riku still found himself unable to think any less of her. "Have you ever noticed that doing spontaneous things always gives you something to think about the day after?" she asked.

"What kind of spontaneous things...?"

"Like taking in a bloody stranger claiming to be your neighbor. Like peering in through someone's window and then serenading them in the middle of the night."

"...Ohh. _Those_ kinds of spontaneous things."

"What did you think I was talking about?"

"Sex."

One corner of her mouth quirked upwards into a little half smile, her fingers busily wrapping the bandage around one of Riku's maimed hands. The wounds were obvious now that the blood was gone-- nasty red things that Riku couldn't believe were actually on his perfect skin. Stupid vase. Stupid fountain. But he was snapped back into focus by the woman's words as she said, "No. I wasn't talking about that."

"Why not?"

"Because...? I... don't regularly practice sexual intercourse as a means of spontaneity."

"Really?"

"Are you always so forward?"

Riku grinned as she finished wrapping the second hand, his fingers twitching experimentally inside the cloth. "Being forward gets me what I want," he said. The woman looked up, locked eyes with him, and promptly, abruptly rose to her feet and crossed the room. "Hey, don't get mad! I was just telling the truth! I'm not trying to come on to you or anything, I swear. I'm gay!" Riku insisted.

As she came to rest by the sliding glass door, the woman looked back over her shoulder. She replied easily, calmly, simply, "I could tell."

"So why'd you go all huffy on me?"

"You really _are_ quite forward."

"Well somebody's gotta be." The silence was there again, but it wasn't quite so warm as it had been. She looked out the glass door and he looked on after her, puzzled, and somehow getting the sinking feeling that the new, colder form of silence was his fault. Clearing his throat, Riku tried to break it. "Hey, won't that Asian guy, um, your husband, uh... get mad?"

"...Husband?" The woman turned to look back at him again, confused this time, but only for a minute. Right before she smiled and laughed, all silence-- cold or otherwise-- now gone. "Oh! You must be thinking of Mr. Tigi."

"He's not your husband?"

"No, of course not! He's my agent."

"Agent? I thought you didn't lead some super top-secret life!"

"I don't."

"Hey, I know it's gonna sound really forward and all that, but, ah... how come a pretty girl like you isn't married?"

"I am." She brushed a long strange of hair behind her ear, pursing her lips slightly and choosing her words carefully. "Sometimes I just forget. My husband lives overseas. I don't see him very often."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Why? It's not so bad at all. We're more like... acquaintances, actually. Our marriage was for different reasons."

"That's awful."

"Not really."

"...Huh. You're really something else."

"What makes you say that?"

Arching his back and leaning into the overstuffed couch, Riku closed his eyes, smiling lazily and recalling, recalling, recalling aaall the reasons he couldn't stand most of womankind. "Most girls go crazy thinking about a loveless kinda life. But you don't seem to have a problem with it. Belieeeve you me, it's a serious compliment. A good thing with all the stupid girly drama I've been surrounded by lately. Sheesh. A nice change, you know? Someone who doesn't care, just like me."

"But didn't you say you were homosexual?"

"Uh, yeah, but that doesn't mean I care."

"Oh. ...Oh, I'm sorry. I understand." She laughed nervously-- it caught Riku off guard. But she clearly thought nothing of it, nodding along, her fingers twisting together, suddenly nervous, suddenly terribly out of place. She was almost... babbling, but she tried to cover it up with manners and good humor. "Listen, it's getting awfully late. Now that I know I don't live next to a murderer, I'm sure I'll be able to sleep much easier than before."

Riku laughed right along with her, noticing the sudden change in mood-- how could he not?-- but deciding not to call her on it. Instead he just smiled warmly and got to his feet, thanking the woman for the bandages, the disinfectant, and the damn stone fountain that had just looked oh-so-inviting upon first glance.

"Perhaps you could stop by again some time...?"

"Riku."

"Riku. It was a pleasure meeting you. I'm Aerith, by the way. Aerith Gainsborough."

Upon leaving Aerith's house, a very strange feeling came over Riku. It was one he was quite familiar with, but one that he couldn't figure out at that particular moment in time.

_Why_, after just having had a rather bizarre conversation about sex, blood, and marriage, would he want to go get laid? Even for Riku, such a question provided him with a terrible, terrible puzzle,

Nevertheless, Riku had never been one to deny his libido. After making his way back to his own front door, his hand hovered above the doorknob for half a moment before retreating back to his side. _Hmm. Pride versus sex. ...Pride... sex. ...Priiide. ...Sex. Someone should write a book. 'Pride and Sex'. Amazing. Well, one day, I will. In the meantime. Sex. Easy enough._

All it took was a simple twist of the key in the ignition, a few turns of the steering wheel, a few stop signs easily ignored, and there Riku was. Right outside Leon's house. ...Leon's dark, cold, and very lonely looking house. Quite the opposite of where he'd been only moments ago, yet Riku couldn't bring himself to complain, even in his own head. He knew that Leon was still awake-- had to be somewhere behind those walls. And, with any luck, he had to be suffering just as much as poor Riku was himself.

Pride versus Sex: The Road to Victory! ...No, too corny. It needs work.

Riku knocked politely on the front door, taking the time to observe the empty flower boxes, the newspaper still sitting on the stoop. Had he not been so confident in Leon's routine self, he would've instantly jumped to the horrid conclusion that Leon had skipped town, too, leaving him just like Selphie had left poor Tidus.

_The rumor mill was having a ball with that one. Poor Tidus. That bitch. Stupid females. No sense. Especially the shoe-stealing females. Good lord._

This thought was followed by another sharp knock on the door, Riku then burying his fists in his pockets and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. It occurred to him that he should probably wonder at what the hell he was thinking-- was he doing this for that pair of shoes Kairi was holding hostage? Ooor was he doing it because he was suddenly finding himself craving the physical worship he thought he'd deserved from the newly discovered neighbor chick?

_Yeah, what the hell was up with her anyhow? You'd think she was a flippin' nun the way she went on. Chastity, chastity, chastity! Chastity can kiss my ass. _

At that moment, the door swung back on its hinges, revealing the ominous darkness behind it. Quite literally, as well. Every light in Leon's house appeared to be off, but there was the open door as proof.

"Leon?"

"Riku."

The two stood there awkwardly for all of half a moment before Riku leaned forward, resting one hand on the doorway while grinning cockily. "Can I come in or what?" he asked. He heard Leon step to the side, he saw the door open just a little more. That was all he needed. In he went, right up to his ears and beyond in darkness, the only light provided by what the streetlights could manage to get through the door along with him.

Clearly, it was enough light for Leon to take in Riku's form, seeing as the next words out of Leon's mouth were stumbled out with surprise, concern, and something that sounded vaguely like annoyance.

"Riku... Your... wrists...?"

Raising a quizzical silver brow, Riku looked down at his hands, catching an eyeful of bloodstained bandages himself. It took him a few seconds to put one and the other together, but once he'd done so he couldn't help but snort rudely and roll his eyes. "Oh get_ real_, you asshole! Like I'd tear myself up over you!"

Leon's shoulders slumped slightly-- relaxed. "What do you want?" he asked. Not demanding, not angry. Just Leon. Just plain old cool and collected Leon.

"Do you want me to give you a polite answer or a real answer?"

"...It doesn't matter."

"Okay then."

Glancing away from Leon's darkened face for a moment, Riku's eyes fell upon the box held in the other man's hands. He couldn't quite make out the contents of it, but whatever it was seemed to be weightless in Leon's grasp. For all Riku knew, the box could've been perfectly empty.

"I thought you were still angry," Leon said.

"You thought wrong."

"..."

Smirking slyly, Riku cocked his head to on side, hair falling over his shoulders. He knew the light was still on his side, even in the darkness like he was. He knew Leon saw the movement and he sure as heck knew that Leon liked whatever it was he saw. He always did. So Riku leaned forward once more, resting his hand on Leon's arm, fingertips just barely grazing the surface of the box he held.

"I don't care if you don't love me, Leon. I don't care if you don't know me. Hell, I don't even care if you don't _like_ me. Does that work for you? You're a cold, heartless bastard. I can be one, too."

There was a dull thud as Riku was slammed against the wall, a loud clatter, smash, slam as the box fell to the floor, its contents scattered across the hardwood. Hands on his wrists, he was pinned to the surface, staring straight up into stormy grey with as much strength, as much anger as he could muster. If he had really wanted to, it wouldn't have been that hard for Riku to escape, really. All it would take would be a simple blow to Leon's most vulnerable area and a swift shove after that-- home free with little to no effort.

But rather than jabbing his knee upwards, sharp and painful, Riku simply slid his leg forward, resting his thigh between Leon's legs, soft and sensual. The grip on his wrists instantly loosened, like some sort of charm had been worked. Yet no sooner did Riku try and move his arms from the wall were they firmly clamped back down, just as his mouth was sealed his Leon's in a brutal, scorching kiss. Any anger left in him, Riku poured into that contact-- he drowned in it, he felt the air being sucked out of him as his arms strained, his neck strained, his tongue strained-- all to get closer to Leon, all to try and express the thing he mistook for hatred.

He made a break for air but was stopped short, cut off once again by that mouth, that damn mouth. He never resisted, he just gave in. He just went without air, pressing insistently against the body in front of him, well aware of the friction and the heat, the way Leon's body responded so familiarly. Leon's chest pressed against his, Leon's hands sliding forcefully down Riku's arms, nails dragging in their wake, leaving ribbons of bruises all the way down to Riku's chest. Panting, yeah, heaving and gasping for air he didn't want-- yeah, that too.

Giddy with pleasure and guilt, Riku could only grin childishly when those hands reached his waist, moved towards his backside and scooped him upwards with ease into those arms-- _his_ arms wrapping around those shoulders, _his_ mouth descending upon that neck with a vicious biting vengeance that drew a ragged breath from his lover. His actions were undoubtedly his own, but he couldn't help feeling possessed as he drove his hips against Leon's, wildly brushing up against him, pushing up against him, writhing in his arms and remaining, still, giddy and guilty.

x x x

The knock on Kairi's apartment door came at around eleven o'clock, and she wasn't at all surprised when she opened it to reveal a certain silver-haired somebody on the other side.

"You fix things up between you and Leon?" she asked.

"Mmhm." Shoving arrogantly past Kairi, Riku immediately honed in on his one little cardboard box, situated alone on Kairi's island counter. Obviously, Kairi had indeed had the faith that Riku would do as she'd instructed, that he would be a good, decent friend and do this one thing for her when she really didn't ask for all that much on a regular basis. But right away, his behavior worried her.

"...Riku...?"

"What, you wanna _check me_ and see if we made up all right?"

"...What happened?"

Riku ran his fingertips delicately over the surface of the shoe-box before picking it up gently in his arms, turning back towards Kairi. "You wanna know what happened?" he asked. His tone was off, somehow, forced in all the wrong places, weak in all the wrong places.

"Well yeah, I mean, I _am_ a little worried. You're acting--" Kairi's words died on her tongue as Riku suddenly bent down forward, his mouth against her ear, his breath smelling of something hot and bitter and completely alien to Kairi's senses.

"We fucked like _crazy_, Kairi," Riku whispered. "Standing up against the wall. You know. Like horses. Horses fuck standing up, too."

All she could do was stare, her look falling somewhere between disgust and absolute horror. Kairi's appalled reaction seemed to satisfy Riku, a wicked smirk settling across his face as he hissed, "Don't be such a prude, Kai. So _naive_. You need to get laid. Hire a hooker. Do yourself a favor."

Though she heard the door close almost immediately after that little encounter, Kairi still remained fixated to the floor for several minutes after-- still shocked, still rattled beyond all belief. There was no way that had just been her Riku saying all those things. There was no way that had just... happened. Closing her eyes and breathing in deeply, Kairi found herself fighting that annoying urge to cry once again.

And that was when the phone rang.

"H-hello?"

"Kairi?"

"Oh--! Ah, M-Ms. Gainsborough!"

"Are you alright, Kairi? I'm so sorry for calling this late. Is this a terribly bad time?"

"N-no, no, it's fine! Um, what can I do for you?"

"I'm so sorry, I feel absolutely awful... Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine, really."

"...Well, there's a bit of a problem. It's a horrible problem, actually. The fundraiser-- the event I need the gown for... It's been moved forward by two weeks."

"What?"

"I know, I know. I'm _so_ sorry. This has all been one terrible mistake. The scheduling and the... I understand if there's no way you can get the design done in time and I will still pay you in full, as promised. I really do apologize for--"

"I can do it."

"Pardon?"

"I can get the design done by then. And I know some girls at the company who would be more than willing to help out with actually putting the dress together."

"Really? Are you sure? It's not too much trouble?"

"No, it's not. It's fine."

"Oh Kairi, this is excellent! Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome, Ms. Gainsborough."

"Please, call me Aerith. Haven't I told you?"

"Um, I'm not sure."

"Well, I prefer Aerith. Now then. What can I do to possibly make this easier for you?"

"Well... I still need a few more measurements. I have some concept sketches, but they're not much. Still, if I could get your input on some of them..." Sniffling slightly, Kairi mentally patted herself on the back for not having a complete breakdown over the phone. Hooray for decent client relationships. She sat down at the island counter and sifted through a stack of magazines and papers, coming to her sketchbook where Aerith's spindly figure graced the surface several times over.

Nodding to herself, Kairi added, "I could have almost a completed design by tomorrow afternoon, I think. Then it's just a matter of getting it to the company."

Through the earpiece came a delighted, airy laugh that somehow made Kairi's head spin, especially when paired along with Aerith's ecstatic words. "Kairi, you're amazing! _This_ is why I hired you. You're splendid. Just like she said!"

Kairi blinked. "...Just like who said?"

"The woman who recommended me to you! I met her... just a brief passing, really, I'm not entirely sure who she was. You designed her wedding dress and she had it with her in the airport."

_Wedding... dress...?_

"What? I-I'm sorry, Aerith, but um... I've only designed one wedding dress..." And in that split second, Kairi was completely broadsided by two separate little truths: one being Aerith's honest-as-the-day-is-long words, and the other being Tidus' apparent return to bachelordom, as told by Sora. _ No way._

Swallowing thickly, Kairi stumbled along awkwardly, asking, "...Did this woman... erm... Did she give you her name? What did she look like?"

"I'm sorry, but the only name she gave me was yours. I was sitting near her in the coffee shop waiting for my flight to come in-- Mr. Tigi was off taking care of our luggage and this girl needed somewhere to sit, somewhere to put her things. And that wedding dress of hers was in a clothing bag, one of the transparent plastic ones. We started talking for a few minutes, and that's how I heard you'd designed her dress for her."

"But what'd she _look _like? I'm sorry, Ms.-- Er, I'm sorry, Aerith, it's just that... What'd she look like?"

"Very small? Brown hair, I believe. Quite charming, though her hairstyle seemed a bit out of place. It was... one of those styles very popular in America during the 60's. The one where it flips out about your shoulders? I'm sorry, Kairi. I wish I could be more helpful, but I can't really remember much else..."

"I see..." Kairi's fingers clenched slightly around the receiver as she closed her eyes, trying desperately to process everything. _ Selphie left the _country_? There's no way... That's so not like her. Maybe it's not even Selphie... Maybe the girl was just confused. But it's not like I really know that many people with _that _hair and... Oh man. _"Listen, it's late, but... It wouldn't take too long, I don't think. Are you too tired to finish the measurements tonight?"

"Not at all. I'll be _right _over. Oh! In fact, that's perfect! I have someone I want you to meet..."

And that half-dead feeling that had been hanging over Kairi's head all day finally dissipated into oblivion. She had a feeling that things were about to head downhill at a_ very_ rapid pace.

_Shit._

(x) (x) (x)

Weeell, Leon and Riku are apparently far more dysfunctional than I'd planned on. 'Magine that. Hope this progressing 'relationship' of theirs doesn't bump the rating up to R. Hrrm. We'll seeeee, we'll seeeee. Hopefully this made up for the serious lack of Riku's character development so far. I've gotta figure out a better way to balance out the fic here... On the bright side, it could mean slightly longer chapters?

Riku's little Romeo speech is inspired by the Indigo Girls' song, 'Romeo and Juliet.' Another big shock, that one.


	7. Vocalization Specialization

**Quoshoopy**

'Vocalization Specialization'

_Enter the boy. He moves into the room, he plops down on the sofa. He leans back, closes his eyes, and, for just a moment, surrenders to the perfect silent sort of solitude so rare, so rare, so very damn rare. _

_Enter the girl, peering around the corner. She hesitates because the boy looks tired. "Want some dinner?" she asks. He smiles, eyes closed. Smile to a grin, ear to ear, voice out and over and saying, "That'd be great, Kairi. You're amazing."_

_That'd be great, Kairi. you're amazing._

_"God, Sora... Do you remember how great we were together? Everyone said it was going to me you and me, you and me, you and me. Together forever, now and always. And whenever they said it, I don't know why, but I was so proud. I felt so happy thinking like that-- feeling like I knew something-- like I had this one solid piece of something that I could be so certain about. That I was going to be with you and you were going to be with me. Through sickness and in health and all those things we joked about when we were kids, remember?_

_"I always took your silence to be something of your other side. Your softer side. Your shy side."_

_Enter the boy. He slips his backpack off one shoulder and it hits the ground with a dull thud. He reaches for the light switch, curses when it doesn't work, and simply leans against the wall, beside the closed door, hiding behind closed eyes, trying desperately to close off his mind._

_Enter the girl, smiling brightly and radiating, pulsating with the sort of energy that comes from that one solitary little feeling. That one solitary little knowledge: 'I can make it better, I can make him happy, I can make him feel good!' And she tries. Wrapping her tiny hands around his skinny arm, she tilts her head, she peers up at him, she giggles and flirts and shines for all she's worth and she thinks she's won him over. He grins and laughs and tries to make a big display of how strong he is, how courageous he is, how manly he is because, indeed, he is a man and men don't cry._

_"When I think about how all of it might have been an act... I can't help but hate you just a little bit. And I hate myself for hating you, really I do. Because I love you with so much of my heart, not only as someone I gave my first kiss to, not only as someone I would have given everything to, but as my friend. And I hate you because you never seemed to know just how much of me you had. And because you gave it away without ever knowing that..."_

Kairi's head broke the surface of the water, her lungs sucking in great gasps of air as she stared at the ceiling. The bath had long since lost its warmth, the bubbles now reduced to nothing more than a few patches of sudsy white clinging to the water's surface. Sighing, Kairi slumped back against the rim on the tub, elbows hooked on either side of her, fingers trailing in the water.

_I need to talk to somebody... I need to tell somebody what the heck's going on..._

She clambered out of the bathtub and unplugged the drain, perching on the edge and watching the water and the soap swirl and twirl and eventually disappear into some sewer system of some unknown somewhere. She slid on her pink bathrobe, toed on her one last silken little slipper, and padded silently out the bathroom and into the living room, where she sat down and proceeded to dial The Number.

The phone rang. It rang, rang, and rang. And finally a familiar, cheerful little voice picked it right on up, filling her ear with and expectance "Hello?"

"Sora?"

"Oh, Kairi!"

"Can you talk for a minute?"

"Ah... yeah, sure!"

"Listen... are you and Riku... are you guys okay?"

"As far as I know. Why, what's up?"

"Nothing."

"Aw, come on, Kai. You know you can tell me whatever it is."

"Yeah."

"...Kairi?"

"I'm not so sure, you know?"

"About you being able to tell me whatever it is, or...?"

"No... Yes... I'm sorry, I don't know! It's just..." Kairi sighed, static on the phone as her breath pushed against it. "It's Riku. I want you to talk to him. Please, Sora. You don't understa-- you **do** understand how he_ is_. Better than I ever did. I don't know what to do with him, he's just so-- so _angry_ and nothing I say... Nothing I say goes without him either taking it the wrong way or just completely blowing me off!"

"That's how Riku is, Kairi. Come on, you know tha--"

"No!" Voice insistent, Kairi gripped the phone tighter, eyes squeezed shut. She tried again-- "I'm sorry, Sora. But he's not like _this_." She rose from the sofa, bare feet slipping over the polished hardwood as she came to rest by the window, arms against the sill. No sound came through the line and she could just picture the boy on the other end, standing stupid with not the slightest idea as to what exactly it was he was supposed to say. "Where are you?" she asked quietly. "Where have you been?"

"A-around. I mean. At home, mostly. ...I'm going out with Tidus a little later on for a job interview. We could be playing blitzball again! Well, yanno, coaching kids on how to play. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah. ...Cool." Kairi licked her lips and had to stifle another sigh because the thought flickered in and through her head that perhaps, if she sighed too much, she would lose so much precious oxygen that she might just pass out on her apartment floor. And then who knows how long it would be before someone would stumble upon her airless little body. "Sora," she continued. "I meant what I said. I want you to talk to Riku."

"Kairi, I don't _want_ to talk to Riku right now. I don't think it'd do any good."

"You were fine talking with him the other night!"

"Well, yeah, but that's different! You were there!"

"Oh, so that's it then. Suddenly I'm the spine in our friendship?"

"Well, yeah. If you're gonna be **blunt **about it--"

"You have no _right_, Sora! You have no _right_ to destroy something so important and neither does he! God, how can you both _be_ so stupid! You're too busy feeling sorry for yourselves to understand you're destroying _everything_!" _All those years-- we pulled through. The three of us. Together. Doesn't that mean anything to any of them?_

"Listen, Kai. I don't know what's got you so wound up, but you really need to cool down. I--"

"You sound just like him." Kairi's voice cut through his, sharp and accusatory where his was soft and pleading. Neither said anything for a moment-- Sora, probably still reeling from her snap, slice, and skewered words, and Kairi probably still trying to find her self-control, to find her voice she'd been so content using for so long. Her calm self. Her centered self. Breathing out slowly, she said, "Selphie left the country."

"_What_?"

"She's gone."

"How... how did you find out? Wh-- are you serious? Well what are we gonna do? Am I supposed to tell Tidus?"

"Do whatever you want." _God, do I sound like a total bitch..._ "...I'm... I'm sorry. ...My client. She found out about me through Selphie, who she met at the airport, just for a short time. She was leaving with her wedding dress."

"Why on earth would she...?"

"Oh, I don't _know_, Sora. I just don't know."

"Hey... are you okay?"

"I'm confused."

"About what?"

"Nothing."

"Kai, that's not you."

Outside her window, Kairi could see the tops of the trees from the park-- orange, red and gold in color, hanging under a heavy grey sky. The whole thing seemed entirely too staged, too reproduced, like it was something from long ago brought back into the world, a saturated film in an IMAX theatre, voiceless actors with dubbed over accents.

"Do you really know what's me, Sora? Because clearly I'm not so sure what was you and I'm not so sure what is Riku and I think there are so many secrets..."

"Well, there are always going to be secrets. Even between friends like us! People need secrets."

"We're not like we used to be, Sora," Kairi murmured. "I'm not like I used to be. I know that much."

"...Kairi, what's wrong?"

"Something happened last night. Aside from Riku, I mean."

"What'd Riku do?"

_"We fucked like_ crazy_, Kairi," Riku whispered. "Standing up against the wall. You know. Like horses. Horses fuck standing up, too." _

"He was angry and bitter... I think something's wrong between him and Leon, Sora. I think something's really, really wrong there and it's hurting Riku so much. But that's not what it was, that's not... After he left, my client came over. She said she wanted to introduce me to someone and, and she brought over that taxi driver. The one who drove you home the night you... you broke up with me. Remember her?"

"Uh. ...Vaguely, distantly, not really?"

"Well she remembers _you_. And me. I've run into her once before after that and she still knew who I was..."

_"Kairi Okada, meet--"_

_"Whoa, no way! Okada? Japanese?"_

_"Uh... yeah. Half. Well. A fourth, really. ...Not like... completely. ...Or anything."_

_"Yuffie Kirasagi here, at your service!"_

_"Kairi, Yuffie's going to be your chauffeur to the fundraiser. You don't have a car, right? We've hired her out for a few weeks, just until everything gets settled. Feel free to give Yuffie a call if you need a ride anywhere, okay?"_

_"Yep! Here's my number!"_

_"Uh... O-kay. ...Oh! I'm sorry, uh, c-come on in! Sorry, sorry... uh..."_

_How do I explain it when I don't know what to say? Well... that makes things difficult. Such a stupid little girl..._ She cut herself off before she got started, before she could bring in the drawings, the fittings, the pins, needles, beauty and perfection. Before she could possibly bring herself to explain it all, to explain Aerith. To explain the words Yuffie had said to her.

_"Hey, I'm not going to give you a hard time about your boy, m'kay? He's crazy if he left you. Just damn crazy, yanno? Say, if I were you, I would've sworn off boys just from that. Seven years, you say? Yeah, just take a break from them. There are other options, yanno. What do you think about open-mindedness?"_

_The two were focused on Aerith who stood across the room as she flipped through a selection of fabrics, mulling over each and every one, pink lips pulled into a perfect little frown of concentration. The two were focused on her hands, on her nails, her wrists, eyelashes and the shadows they cast over her flawless face. Perfection._

_"I don't know... What do you mean exactly?"_

_"What I mean is, there's a whole other gender. A whole other fifty percent. What do you think about open-mindedness?" she asked again._

_Aerith's creamy skin and light bell laughter. Aerith's style, grace and composure. Kairi's dying tan and unstable girly giggle, her clumsiness, awkwardness._ What do you think about open-mindedness?

"What are you going to do, Sora?" Kairi finally asked, shattering the silence that had swelled up between the two of them. Somewhere outside a siren went off and somewhere on the other end of the telephone line Sora was snapped back into the present, away from wherever his mind had wandered off to.

"Huh?"

"What are you doing? With yourself. ...With your life."

It was Sora's turn to sigh, to avoid and back-stab the conversation with a tone that-- while meant to sound older and tired-- only came across as being childish, just like the rest of him. "Don't get on my case about it, Kairi. Not anymore, would you?"

"So what am I supposed to do? Stand around and watch, I suppose?"

"You could try being supportive instead of nagging me, for starters."

"_Nagging_ you? Sora, I'm _worried_ about you, for God's sake. I'm not nag--"

"Okay, okay. ...Kairi there are just... things and... they're weird to explain. I don't really want to... things aren't... haven't... worked out and I... just need to figure them out, okay? Nothing went right..."

"Nothing went right."

"Yeah."

_Nothing went right for **you**? You knew it all along, didn't you? This wasn't some midnight realization you just suddenly had to approach me with. This wasn't something that you suddenly saw in yourself and thought-- God, I have to tell her, I can't string her along. You knew... long before. Back when I was making plans and being stupid. You made an ass of me and a liar..._

Kairi wasn't sad and broken anymore. She turned away from her picturesque window and tore into the phone, into the silence on the other end-- "...Is that all you are now? Are you reduced to something so low you can't speak-- can't make a sound that isn't hurt or stupid? Like a little kid who didn't get what they wanted on holiday?" She let it hang, she hoped her words carried some of her rage across. But there she was, crying again, being stupid and broken and tired again.

"Selfish," she hissed before turning off the phone and flinging it across the room, onto the safety of the sofa and away from her clawing, prying fingers.

_Just another stupid kid who didn't get what she wanted. That's just me. Him too. And all of us. We're so stupid and childish and blind._

For several days after that, Sora and Kairi did not speak again. From time to time, Sora would catch himself wondering if she was alright, if she was okay. But he kept his hand from the phone every time the thought became too strong, steeling himself against that immediate reaction-- that immediate, protective reaction. _I can't keep coddling her all the time... right? She has to get over it. ...Eventually._

_...But is it even about us anymore? Or is it about Riku and everything **else**? Is she really just worried? Are things falling apart on her end? Man... This is impossible._

x x x

A few days down the road, Sora was making his way through the city streets, a loaded bag of groceries toted in each arm and a whistled little tune fresh on his mouth. For Sora, pretending obliviousness was often the easiest way out of most problems. Once people figured he was too stupid or lazy to do anything to help them, they generally left him alone and the entire situation eventually blew over on its own accord. And though Sora was truly neither stupid nor lazy, he just... didn't know what to do sometimes.

But then, through the crowd, he could make up a mess of blonde, spiky hair that could only truly be one person.

"Cloud!"

"Hey there."

Cloud smiled as Sora bounded over, shopping bags bobbling and wobbling and threatening to spill at any given second. Showing no signs of worry whatsoever, Sora's grin was overpowering as he fell into stride beside the taller man. "Hey! Guess what?" He didn't wait for a response, didn't even need one, really, for he assured himself he was just that damn happy and excited-- who needed answers when everything came in the form of a paycheck and a game ball? "I got the job! Me 'n Tidus-- we got the job! The coaching job, you know? For blitzball!"

"Exciting. So when do you start?" Shifting his briefcase to his other hand, Cloud snagged one of Sora's grocery bags, arm wrapped around it as he followed Sora. Surprisingly enough, Sora didn't argue. But upon realizing he'd made the mistake of grabbing the _heavier_ bag, Cloud rolled his eyes and did his best to hide a smile. _ No wonder Sora didn't whine about me stealing his precious food. It weighs a ton._

"Two weeks. Man, _finally_, right? I've been lazing around forever. Thought I'd never get off my ass!" Sora laughed, clapping his free hand to the back of head and toddling along the city streets, face taking on a rather thoughtful sort of expression. "Though now that I think about it... I'm gonna miss sleeping in. Walking around in my boxers at three in the afternoon, ordering Chinese whenever the hell I feel like it. ...Aw man, maybe I made a mistake!"

"What exactly was it you were doing all this time? You don't exactly pay bills off of nothing, do you?"

"It's a long story."

"Hm, unusually quiet, I see."

"It's a biiig long scaaary story, Cloud! Ooo-ooh. Lots of ghosts and demons and life and death-- peril, torture, distress, blood, gore, doom, gloom-- the whole nine yards!"

"_Now_ I'm intrigued."

"Nah, my mom just likes to baby me."

"...Are you serious?"

"Yep."

"Talk about anti-climactic."

"No _kidding_. If she had her way, I'd still be living under the same roof as her. Or just within reach of her sugar-coated claws." Sora laughed loudly, but shook his head and shot Cloud something of a half-smirk as he tried to explain. "It's not that she smothers me. She just cares... too much, sometimes."

"It's cool, I get it." Cloud smiled warmly, easily. It came to him almost as a sort of second nature when he was around Sora-- that easygoing smile. He hadn't thought of it until that moment and he wasn't entirely sure he even wanted to think of it at all. Thinking would mean acknowledging, and acknowledging would mean remembering. So he pushed his smile away in the next moment, replacing it with a thoughtful frown. "You shouldn't give her a hard time on it, though," he said after a moment. "Sounds to me like she just loves you."

"I know she does!" Sora was carefree as ever when he asked it-- curious and polite at the same time. "Hey, so how 'bout you and your 'rents, huh?"

Cloud blinked. _Oh._ "...They're alright."

"'Hm! Unusually _quiet_, I see!'"

"...You're a nutcase."

"Aw, you know you love it." Sora's laughter only last half a second before he realized what he said. Face reddening considerably, he stuttered out, "Uh, I-I mean..." Cloud had tensed beside him and the Sora awkwardly stared at the cross-light, which chose that exact moment to switch to WALK. With the two men practically bolting across the street, neither thought to even try and acknowledge what had just happened.

Until they rounded the corner.

Until they approached Sora's house.

Until the unavoidable question loomed in front of them, asking, "_Well, what next?_"

Up there on the stoop, the two set their bags on the ground as Sora dug around in his pocket for the key. But just like that, he suddenly froze, almost as though startled to death, right before looking up. "Hey, we're okay, right?" he asked. "I mean... We're not... I'm... Listen, I didn't mean to make things awkward! I'm sorry!"

"Sora, uh..."

"I'm really, really sorry. I feel like such a loser, you know? I swear it just slipped and then it was _way_ awkward later and now they think-- and then we-- in your-- and the blitzball-- and Tidus, but he doesn't know-- I mean, think-- he doesn't think-- well, he doesn't think much anyway, but he doesn't think we're--!"

"Sora, it's o--"

"But then the thing in your... and the... with the..."

"The... um... the kiss?"

"Yes! The kiss!"

"That was my fault."

"No it wasn't! I told you about what I told Kairi and RIku and it was a big lie and I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, Sora..." Cloud gaped at the kid who stood before him, drawn, withered, and drained of all his words that had before reproduced in his head like bunnies in heat. But just like that, he'd soaked them all up and let them all go. One fell swoop. "Hey, come on. I said it's alright," Cloud insisted softly.

"But it's not. I still feel bad."

"...Are you hungry?" Sora shook his head. "Do you want to listen to some music?" Again, an apparent no. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Cloud studied Sora for a good long moment, completely aware of how the other slowly began to turn a darker shade of pink, then red-- right before his very eyes.

"Hmm, this feels familiar somehow..." Cloud's mouth pulled into a small smile, one hand coming to rest on Sora's shoulder. He bent his head down at just such an angle and Sora nearly found himself broadsided by the sheer memory alone.

"You okay, kid?"

_The man smiled, though it seemed a bit stressed and puzzled, clearly wondering at Sora's mute nature. Maybe the kid actually was mute. A few awkward moments passed between the two and the man glanced around the bus, drummed his fingers against the tiny gadget in his hands, tapped his foot against the leg of the bench in front of them... Finally he said, "Anyway. Sorry 'bout that. You know. It's really none of my business if-"_

"_It's okay!" Sora quickly interjected, falling silent again and blinking up at the older man with almost unnaturally large eyes._

_The expression must have struck the other as amusing, for the blonde laughed cheerfully and pull his headphones off. He spun one of the tiny earpieces around his finger and surveyed Sora with a practiced ease, a smile still tugging pleasantly at the corner of his mouth and an amused look still firmly embedded somewhere within his gaze._

"_It's Bob Dylan. You ever listen to him?"_

"'Life is sad, life is a bust, all you can do is do what you must...'" It was Sora's turn to smile and smile he did, a broad grin and a healthy glow back to his face and skin and eyes all alike. "Heh."

"You remember."

"Of course I do."

"Sora..." And suddenly the two were presented with a moment in which Cloud was close and Sora was close and the neighborhood was deserted and the groceries were out of their arms and there was nothing left to do but to do the absolute obvious, to do the only thing they could, to solve and bring to conclusion the one truly pressing issue of the moment.

"..."

"..."

"Y-you have some pillow fluff in your hair." Cloud let out the dying breath he'd realized he'd been holding in all along, reaching up and tentatively plucking the sad little piece of fuzz from Sora's messy hair. Honestly, Cloud wouldn't really have been surprised if Sora hadn't even brushed the brown mop since he'd woken up the previous day. And yet somehow, that fact wasn't the least bit disturbing. In fact, it was just disarming, instead.

...Honestly, the next thing you know, I'll be saying the kid's knuckles have a certain flair to them that just can't exist on the knuckles of any other person. That his knuckles are magical. Special. I've got to get out of this.

And though it was no surprise (to anyone but Cloud), he found himself in Sora's foyer. Then in Sora's kitchen. Then on Sora's couch. Sora proceeded to move them from room to room until he absolutely ran out of rooms altogether, save for avoiding the bedroom like the plague. On their second trip around the house, Cloud began to get more than a little concerned and didn't move when Sora suggested they go outside for some fresh air. He just sat there on the couch, staring at the poor boy in front of him with an expression that asked for something. Just something. It didn't even have to be a big something. But it couldn't just be reduced to shoveling a body from place to place.

Whether Sora understood this or not, he didn't try to move Cloud again. He stood in the center of the room, hands dangling helplessly at his sides. And, after a moment, he quietly asked, "Cloud... w-was it an accident... that one night?"

"Was what...?"

Sora stepped forward, he leaned down. He placed one hand each on Cloud's shoulders, studied Cloud's mouth, Cloud's eyes, the dip of Cloud's chin and the soft, almost invisible sway of his cheekbone that disappeared in a fray of blonde bangs. He smiled a little, awkward a little-- leaned forward a little and gently kissed Cloud-- "That,"-- before pulling away.

_Oh. That._

"I..." The words didn't make it out of Cloud's mouth-- they barely made it up his throat before they wilted away into nothing but dead air. He was killed once, resurrected, and killed once more by the pair of blue eyes across from his, so very different from his own, yet... It was all he could do to resist for a few moments, to take a quick short breath before leaning forward on his own accord and pressing his mouth to Sora's once again.

The room was nearly silent during the minutes that followed. But inside Sora's head was a roar of blood and a crash of something else-- something he wasn't quite familiar with. He could _feel _so much and it was nothing short of overwhelming, nothing less than overpowering. Moving onto the couch, he slid his palm up to rest against Cloud's chest, feeling the beat of his heart through skin and fabric alike. He wrapped an arm around Cloud's broad shoulders, he leaned in closer, he gasped for air, he craned his neck, he-- for all he was worth, he tried to make it good.

And when he felt Cloud's tongue flick tentatively against his lips, he didn't resist. He parted them slowly, he adjusted to the feel of someone else's tongue brushing against his in such a different way. _This is nothing like kissing a girl. ...This is nothing like kissing Kairi._ And indeed, it wasn't. Cloud had an air of purpose in each movement he made, from the way he pressed against Sora, the way his fingers moved against the back of his neck, around to his ear, his jaw, his shoulder.

"I'm sorry..." Cloud murmured then, lips still only breaking apart a few chance centimeters. But his eyes showed it-- he really was sorry.

"Don't start up with that again."

"I'm taking advantage of you..."

"No you're not."

"I shouldn't..."

"Shouldn't what?"

"But..."

"But I want you to do it_ again_." This bold little statement of Sora's was only perfected by the following grin and gentle tug on the front of Cloud's shirt, where Sora's hand still rested innocently, fisted in the soft fabric. "Is that okay with you? I mean, you understand, right?"

Cloud pulled back further to study Sora's face for a moment-- exactly why, he didn't quite know-- but that only succeeded in giving the brunette enough wiggle room to free both hands and take Cloud's face between them. Really, it must have looked quite silly with the slender little excuse of a boy cupping the face of the older, taller, blonder of the two, but no one was watching and no one was really caring. No one outside of the room's two sole occupants.

"You _get_ that, right?" Sora asked again.

"I get it, but..."

"Okay then. That's all you need."

"You don't know anything about me..."

"So?"

"So don't let me do any of this to you."

"Too late."

"No it's not."

"Yes it is." Sora's pout was borderline furious when Cloud didn't move. He hadn't exactly pulled further away, but his arms purposely remained glued to his own sides, well away from Sora. "Why are you making this so hard?" Sora demanded. "It's okay, Cloud... Isn't it? Y-You want it. ...I _know_ you do."

"I have to go." Cloud moved to stand up from the couch, Sora slipping off of him, stunned into silence for all of a split second before his arms flew out and wrapped themselves around Cloud's waist.

"No you don't!"

"I'm sorry, Sora." Cloud pulled, stubborn, and Sora, even more stubborn, not only held on for dear life, but proceeded to actually climb up Cloud's back, arms and hands snaking up around Cloud's shoulders, dead set on never letting go.

"You're _not going_ yet," Sora insisted. ...Whined. Pleaded. Call it what you will.

"Sora, get **off**."

"Only if you help."

"What?"

"I can't believe I just said that..."

"Sora, _please_."

"Nuh uh. Sorry, Cloud. But I'm not moving. Not until we figure some things ou-- wh-- hey!" Sora gawked at Cloud as he found himself practically upside down on his own sofa, somehow flung there by the blonde who, at that particular moment in time, seemed to be freaking right the fuck out.

"Just... just _stay_ there, okay?" Cloud begged. His arms here in front of him, hands held out to stop Sora, to push him right away even though he hadn't even moved towards Cloud again. He was backing toward the door, toward his briefcase and toward some conclusion Sora knew he didn't want him to make. He turned his back towards Sora, scooped up his briefcase and began to open the--

"Cloud, if you walk out that door..." He paused. "If you walk out that door, you'll regret it forever! Because I could get hit by a bus tomorrow-- that same _stupid_ bus we sat on that first time, you know? And then that bus that permanently has _your_ number rubbed backwards on one bench-- that bus'll have _my_ blood all over it and _you_ wouldn't have said goodbye."

"Sora..."

"I'm_ serious_! You're so dumb sometimes, Cloud!" Breathing heavily, Sora swallowed. His eyes were still rooted to Cloud's back, and suddenly he didn't want the older man to turn around for fear that it would make Sora just break down and cry. He didn't know why, but he knew it would happen. Just as he should have known the phone would start ringing-- _of course_-- right then. He ignored it.

"I wouldn't... I wouldn't let you touch me if I didn't want you to," Sora said. "I wouldn't just set myself up for something I didn't want."

"The phone..."

"Let it _ring_, okay? This is important." Sora closed his eyes, trying so damn hard to control himself. He hated _not_ controlling himself. He hated looking like a baby. But that was exactly what he was, wasn't it? _ Kairi was right all along._

Cloud was by the window then, and Kairi had been right all along.

"What are you thinking about, Cloud?" Sora asked quietly. "...You're not gonna answer me, are you?" There was no response. Not that he'd expected one. "And you're not gonna tell me what you want or how you feel. ...How come, I wonder? What's wrong with saying things like that?"

"I don't know." Cloud closed his eyes when he felt Sora move to stand behind him, when he felt those skinny little arms around him, a chin tucked between his neck and his shoulder. And somewhere, the phone was still ringing. _Had_ been ringing. Wouldn't ever seem to _stop_ ringing.

"But you think and feel things all the time. Don't you wanna talk about 'em?"

"No."

"Never?"

"No..."

"No _what_? No you don't wanna talk about them ever, or no you do want to talk about them sometimes?"

"Sora, wh--"

The answering machine light flashed-- once, twice, three times. The message played and the room was spun straight to silence, all with the exception of the one harsh voice, the one harsh and painfully familiar voice. "Hey, Sora. ...It's Riku. Uh. Listen. Call me back when you get this, got it?"

Sora fell into the silence, sliding off to one side as Cloud continued to look blankly out the window. A half-assed job of a front yard and a pleasant suburban side-street-- nothing more, nothing less, and nothing really,_ truly_, his. He knew that both he and Sora were hearing those words on replay, hearing his voice on replay, hearing "It's Riku, It's Riku, It's Riku" so many times over it could well be a broken record.

"You love him, remember?" Cloud asked quietly.

"Don't do that." Sora was back on the couch again, trying to pretend like he _didn't _want to just bury his head in his hands and forget the past month had ever happened.

"Why not? It's true, isn't it?"

Voice taking on a slight desperation, Sora hopped to his feet and strode over to the blonde once more. "Cloud, that was a while ago. He loves someone else. And then there's you..."

He reached up, wrapped his arms carefully around Cloud's shoulders, cheek pressing softly against his back. Again, again, Sora did it all _again_, trying to get closer to Cloud and doing everything possible to make him understand because Sora couldn't put it to words without messing them up, without changing them into something they weren't supposed to be.

Since when did _"I think I might possibly love you"_ turn into "_Let the stupid phone ring, okay? We have nothing to say to each other anyway_"?

Sora breathed out slowly, carefully-- breathed in, taking along Cloud's warmth and breath and faint cologne.

"Then there's me."

"Yeah, you. Stupid."

"Sora..." Cloud sighed. He really didn't want to get into it. It would mean more questions and more talking and more explaining than he wanted to do right then-- hell more than he ever wanted to do given an entire lifetime. "It's more complicated than you think."

"How?" When Cloud didn't say anything, Sora moved to his side, pulled his arms away and settled for hooking his hands around Cloud's wrist, shaking it to get his attention-- "Let's go away... just for a little while. Okay? Let's do that. My mom-- she has this cottage up a ways by the lake. An hour's drive. Let's go for a few days. Let's just get away-- just for a few days. _Only_ a few days."

"We can't do that..."

"Why?"

"I have to work. And you just got that job."

"Forget that job! Forget _any_ job, Cloud... Just for a few days..."

"That's not the way it works, Sora. Nothing works like that..."

"Only because you say it can't." Sora bit his bottom lip and was afraid that he was losing when Cloud's gaze turned back out the window. Again, he pulled on Cloud's arm--_ Look at me, dammit! _ "There are turtles up there," Sora rattled off frantically.

"..._What?_"

"At the _lake_, Cloud. And... and they _die_ if they stay in the water too long. The turtles. They're so slow and gentle on land, right? Like every move they make is so cautious and careful and they're safe and away in their shells. But when they go in the water, if they get stuck in the water and can't get out, they die. Their shells rot and they die." Sucking in a deep breath Sora nodded urgently, forcing a new purpose into this. Yeah, his words and meaning got twisted and lost somewhere along the way, but... heck, it just might be a plan half-baked enough to work. "I have to save the turtles," Sora concluded.

And Cloud... could only stare. "Sora...?"

"_Please_, let's just **go**."

"..."

"..."

"...Give me a day to let the guys at work know..."

"Thank you, Cloud!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"You're _amazing_."

"...Stupendous?"

"_Stupendous_."

"Extraordinary?"

"_Absolutely_ extraordinary."

"I'll take it."

"You'd better."

And they both took it, after all. Sora called Tidus and told him that something had come up, that he'd be out of town for a few days and that their job interview would have to wait until Monday. Of course the other pitched a fit, but it was to be expected and Sora won out in the end with promises of practice sessions and drill plans over a glass of beer and a TV remote one fine afternoon following his return.

Cloud had a considerably easier time getting off work than he thought. Having the appearance of a workaholic and the demeanor of a heartless ice cube paid off in the end, what with everyone suddenly all support and smiles and "Go on, Strife, you could use the vacation. Hell, I don't think I've ever seen you take a day off since you started working, have _you, _Wakka? No way. Take a day, take two-- heck,_ three_ days. What the hell."

It was with some delight and a little bit of hesitancy that the two met up at the bus stop a day later, as planned, each carrying a pack of clothing and a sweatshirt slung over one arm. So similar and yet somehow different-- Sora dressed in a worn pair of blue jeans fraying at the knees, a tee which read Bob's Bait and Tackle on it above a dead fish-- Cloud decked out in tan corduroys and a loose white button-up. The meeting-moment passed and Sora's grin stretched far and wide as the bus pulled up. He mouthed the word "thanks" and started up the stairs without looking back, trusting and knowing Cloud would follow.

Which he did.

Seated side by side on a bus once more, Cloud and Sora were content to just look out the window, Sora's head eventually tipping and falling against Cloud's shoulder as the boy slipped off into a light sleep. Cloud couldn't keep a soft smile from his face, not as they stopped at the stops of the city streets, not as they moved out and onward into the further reaches of the sprawling residential neighborhoods, eventually giving way to open farmland and a wide autumn countryside, speckled with red barns, crisp hay, and a never-ending spectrum of leaves flung up against an afternoon sky.

An hour later, sure enough, the driver came to the end of the line and Cloud gently shook Sora from his sleep. The brunette stirred slowly, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and looked out the window where a light sprinkle had started to fall. "Oh," he said. "It's raining." And it was all Cloud could do to keep from laughing and holding onto the boy for dear life, for fear that that moment would slip and fade away forever.

It didn't. It hovered and clung and remained even after they stepped off the bus. Neither had thought to bring an umbrella, but neither had thought to mind, Sora letting out a delighted little laugh and grabbing hold of Cloud's hand, leading the older man away from the bus and the tiny little town community they'd come to find themselves in. Down the dirt road and between the trees, Sora took a sharp left and they vanished into the woods, pelted by the occasional wet leaf or drop of rain that had slipped through the falling canopy. The end of their journey brought them-- still hand in hand-- to a small, tidy little cottage nestled between two others, grey-brown shingles and an earthy, rich smell, a clean and natural sort of smell that mixed with the rain and the leaves and left Cloud and Sora breathing it in as deep as they could.

"Here we are!" Sora chirped, right before spinning off around the back of the cottage, leaving Cloud to follow. The rain picked up to a heavier drumming force, knocking against the cottage and the lake it overlooked. "There's a porch back here!" Sora called out. "It'll be dry... Or not." Rain passed through the floorboards of the porch hanging over them and Sora laughed again, cheeks flushed and wet. "So much for that idea."

He picked up one rock of three situated beside the door, turning one the size of his palm over and detaching the key that was taped there. With a wink in Cloud's direction, he unlocked the door, stepped inside, and shook off the rainwater within the dark and quiet that hung there.

"Don't just _stand_ there," Sora chided. "Come _here_, already!" Cloud... wasn't entirely sure what was meant by this. Sora's outstretched arms seemed to beg for a hug, but to assume that was their purpose seemed too forward, too brash somehow. Nonetheless, Cloud risked a bit of boldness and stepped awkwardly into Sora's arms, unable to contain a gruff little chuckle as they closed around him in a warm embrace, Sora's head plopping against his chest and resting there, turned to one side.

x x x

Kairi worked the fabric through her fingers, an array of pins protruding from her puckered mouth. Occasionally should reach up and grab one, careful not to stab herself in the process. She was alone in her small little workspace at the office, the room filled with concept sketches, pins, needles, fabric bolts, color swatches, jewelry catalogues, ad clippings, photographs, scrap, scribbles, snatches of this, that, and the--

"Kairi, are you sure you don't need any help?"

"I'm okay Tifa."

_Yeah. I _am_ okay, aren't I? _ And she couldn't help but grin a little, pause a little, think a little. She dusted off her knees and backed away from the mannequin she'd stood in front of her desk. Far too short to be Aerith, but the measurements were exact. The fabric pinned to the fake woman in front of her would fit just as well, if not more so, on the real one. The real Aerith.

Grin faded to a smile, Kairi could only feel something she had to call 'satisfaction.' Satisfaction wasn't what it was, but she found she didn't have any word to call it by. It just was what it was, and only Kairi would ever be able to truly feel or understand it.

x x x

"Let's seeee... what've we got here?" Rummage, rummage, rustle. _Squeak._ "...Um... A jar of peanuts..."

"What kind of peanuts?" Cloud asked.

"Honey roasted."

"Sounds good."

"...Good. Because that's it."

"What?"

"Unless you can eat coffee filters, plastic spoons, or waffle mix..."

"What about waffles then?"

"No eggs, no milk."

"Peanuts are good."

"I'll never look at peanuts the same way ever again."

Cloud smirked, holding up a lone peanut between two fingers, looking at it closely with what appeared to be the most contemplative stare he'd yet to master. "Probably not," he agreed. "From now on, any time you see a peanut like this, you'll have to think of this afternoon. For the rest of your life, you'll be haunted by the memory of you and me sitting here with nothing to eat but a jar of peanuts."

"It's a _classic_."

"Naturally." Taking a handful of the nutty goodness Sora had set out on the counter, Cloud walked across the kitchen, back towards the living room. The rain was still going, but oddly enough, it fit. In the height of autumn, the water would be too cold for swimming, the trails too slicked down by leaves for hiking. Sora appeared at his side and Cloud felt a pang of something too similar to fear to be ignored. He did something he tried to avoid. He started a conversation.

Not because he feared the silence, but because he feared what Sora was capable of filling the silence _with_.

"So where are the turtles?" Cloud asked.

"Oh they're out there. You just need to look real hard sometimes. They don't come out when it rains, but they like to sun themselves when it's warm and clear outside and if they can climb up on something solid for long enough."

Cloud scanned the water intently, only half believing Sora, really. He'd fallen for the turtle ploy because it had seemed significant at the time, because Sora had seemed on the brink of absolute hysteria and the absolute last thing Cloud wanted to watch him do was that that one little step over the edge and straight on into it.

Not once had he honestly thought that Sora might actually, _possibly_ be saying something remotely logical.

Idly, and out of a simple, content kind of curiosity, Cloud gestured toward the lake, towards a clump a debris that seemed to be stuck floating in one particular spot, four yards or so out from the dock. It wasn't a turtle, but... The more he studied the lake, the more he saw similar shapes sitting rather stationary in the water.

"What're those?"

"Turtle perches."

_...Turtle... perches?_

Sora shot Cloud a triumphant little grin as he stretched and leaned forward, towards the window, towards the lake. He said, "All they're really made of is driftwood. Driftwood, spare _old_ wood that was lying around, and some parts from this old life ring... thing. The turtles climb up on them to get in the sun and dry off their shells."

"...Huh. So you were completely serious about saving those turtles after all."

"Of course I was! Honestly. You act like shell-rot is a laughing matter or something."

"Not laughing at all."

"Not you, no. Not ever."

Both Sora and Cloud exchanged glances of the utmost serious nature. Yet Sora couldn't help himself in the end and tweaked Cloud's nose and Cloud flinched and jabbed Sora's ribs and Sora yelped and grabbed Cloud's wrist and the two went tumbling down together in a sprawling heap of bones and limbs and clothes, right onto the strategically placed sofa. They sat for a moment, somewhere between a haze of consciousness and some state above it.

Across from them was a picture window that looked out across the lake. It was riddled with the pattern of the falling rain and growing darker with the procession of leaves that fell and littered its surface. The driftwood bobbed silently in the water, the sand grew darker still and the grass grew greener, the sky darker. All these things pointed towards the passing of time, but neither seemed to care. Somehow, leaving like they did, they'd managed to snip themselves free from time itself and all its troublesome little side-effects.

"This is... nice," Cloud finally said.

"Mm." Sora giggled a little, shamelessly nuzzling his face against Cloud's shoulder. He considered telling the older man that he smelled like peanuts, but then came to the conclusions that not only was that little statement of fact probably unnecessary, but it would probably also ruin the mood. ...Then again, Sora ruined the mood anyway.

"My grandpa and I used to go fishing up here all the time. Riku and Kairi and me came up here a lot... I tried to get them to fish once."

"You fish?"

"Not very well, no." At Cloud's chuckle, Sora could only scowl and punch him playfully in the arm. "Hey, It gets _boring_. But my gramps used to tell me stories about the fishing lures to keep me interested."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah... it's stupid though, so nevermind."

"No, no, come on, I wanna hear. Tell me all about the bait and tackle."

"Don't be mean about it!"

"I wasn't. I want to hear." Cloud leaned back further into the sofa they were settled on, one arm wrapped around Sora and tugging the younger boy along with an almost practiced ease. Sora threw him a doubtful little stare, but Cloud's all-too-sincere voice could only win out in the end. "Tell me?"

"**Well**," Sora declared. He folded his hands in his lap and took on a most regal air as he began: "_Once_ upon a time there was the red-eyed-wiggler and the tiny-go-deeper."

There were no words to describe the noise Cloud made then-- something between a lung-wrenching guffaw and a snort of absolute hysteria as he keeled over on the couch in a peel of sudden, painful laughter. Sora bristled indignantly, bottom lip puckered into a pout-- "You _said_ you wanted to _hear_!"

"I do, I do!" Cloud gasped out between laughing fits. "The... the red-eyed-wibbler and tiny-go-whatter?"

"The red-eyed-**wiggler** and the tiny-go-**deeper**, Cloud!"

"They sound like godawful porn star names."

"Well look, I don't know about you, but I can't possibly imagine getting off to anything that wiggles and has red eyes." Sora frowned and tilted his head to one side for a moment, clearly lost in thought. "Or anything called the tiny-go-deeper, for that matter," he continued. "It seems rather futile for the tiny to go any deeper if they're really so tiny."

This only set Cloud off once again, sending the poor man collapsing onto the floor in a laughing, gasping heap of blonde hair and corduroy. Sora could hold himself in no longer and was soon desperately covering his mouth to keep from howling with laughter like an idiot, only to find a hand clamped around his ankle one second and his body pulled onto the ground the next, flopped on top of Cloud and still dying from the lack of oxygen making it into his little body of laughter.

In all honesty, nothing Sora or Cloud said or did that evening was particularly funny in the slightest. Neither was intoxicated or high or under the influence of much of anything-- with the exception of the high that comes from making a most daring and treacherous escape from the prison of the real world. That evening, in the darkness of a cottage that legally belong to neither of them, both Cloud and Sora were giddy with the idea of their secret and unplanned adventure.

Arms crossed on Cloud's chest, Sora's chin rested atop them with a smug little smirk settled across his face.

"Once upon a _time_," he said, "there was the red-eyed-wiggler and the tiny-go-deeper. Each and every day they sat alone and unused in the tackle box alongside all their friends until one day two people decided to use them. With the red-eyed-wiggler on one line and the tiny-go-deeper on the other, they were taken to the edge of the dock and cast into the water. But the two were so terrified when they were apart that the red-eyed-wiggler refused to wiggle and the tiny-go-deeper would not budge a foot deeper. The fisher-people were at a loss of what to do, so for lack of a better plan, they cut their line and let the two lures loose into the lake, where they sank to the very bottom."

"What a dreadful tale."

"It doesn't end there."

"Well, why'd you stop?"

"That's all I feel like telling right now."

"You're kidding."

"Yeah, you're right. I just can't remember the rest, really, but it'll come back eventually. Nooo worries."

Cloud smiled at Sora, Sora smiled at Cloud, and then the room was plunged in a pleasant silence. ...A pleasant, relative silence.

x x x

It was late. Kairi was tired. She wanted to go home.

Her radio had been acting up and she craned her neck around the mannequin full of pins, needles, and tacked-on-cloth to spot it sitting up on her desk. Antenna stretched towards the sky, the poor pathetic thing struggled to pick up any reception, buried as it was beneath the papers and the building and the crowded city streets. _"Zzzththshhh-- that, la--shhshhzuhzuhzweeoo-- lemen, was 'Revolve,' perfor-- thththeesshhh-- band--"_

That was when it hit.

_Revolve. ...Revolve..._ Kairi's eyes widened, her head pounded, her heart raced. _Holy _shit_, that word_. She flew up from the ground and raced across to her desk, fumbling around for something-- anything-- to write with. She wrote it once-- REVOLVE-- on the back of a sketch. She could see Aerith's arms and limbs and hair burned through the paper, searing onto the back, over the word.

She wrote it again. **REVOLVE**.

It wasn't hitting it, it wasn't doing it. She could still see Aerith-- the woman was distracting. Angry, Kairi shoved the paper to the floor where it landed upon a mass of equally scrawled, scratched and tortured sheets in its very likeness. She grabbed for a new piece of paper. For the third time she began to spell it out-- slowly, painfully, trying for all she was worth to milk the meaning out of the word and try and understand just why exactly it had shocked her so. It was important. But how? How the hell...?

R-E-V-O-L-- Wait.

She went back. She erased the R. Evol. Evolve, evol, evolve, evil? Evil? No. Evol.

Kairi's normally crisp, precise handwriting was reduced to a hectic chicken scratch as she wrote out the letters again and again, trying to get a handle on it. **E**_v_o**l**, _ev_o**l**, e**vo**_l_. She paused. E-V-O-L. L-O-V-E. _...Well, duh. _There was a rather sudden stunning silence as the radio fuzzed out into blank static and the office was plunged into a cold, dead silence. No one was there. All the sane workers had gone home. That left Kairi and her pencil and her paper and her word.

She had a moment to breathe before the memory washed in.

_"You know, love spelled backwards makes 'evol.' And if you add a 've' you get 'evolve'. Did you know that?" Her eyes were bright, green in the daylight, but almost some sort of eerie, off-kilter glow-in-the-dark by lamplight. When her companion said nothing, she pressed the question. "Did you **know** that?"_

_"I... I guess not. I'd never thought about it, really."_

_"Well, it does." There was a silence. Sometimes there was a silence. Rarely there was a silence. But sometimes... "...Hey Kairi?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Do you think it's possible for love to evolve into something else?"_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Like... When two people meet each other, they can become friends. Then they can become lovers. ...But what about after you're lovers? What's after that?"_

_"Well... I don't know. The... the love grows, you know? You... get married. You become spouses, I guess. Maybe there's nothing after becoming lovers. I just-- I really just don't know."_

_"What... if... the love doesn't grow anymore? What if it stops growing?" Voice quiet, hesitant, the girl refused to look at anything but the sky above them, refused to acknowledge anything but the earth below them. She didn't want to hear the answer._

_"Then you just don't become anything else."_

_"It just dies? The love just dies? Does-- does it become extinct? If animals can't evolve, they become extinct, did you know that? Does it just _die_? Kairi, it doesn't just _**die**_, does it?"_

_"It doesn't have to die, Selphie. Maybe it just..." Kairi rolled over onto one side. She saw the lamp between the two of them, stupid little girls they were laid out on the back lawn with nothing between them and the grass and the dirt but a thin, worn quilt. She didn't realize she'd stop talking until she looked up to see those wide eyes so fixated on her, on her every single word._

_"No," she continued. "It doesn't die. Maybe it just stops."_

It was eleven o' clock when she pulled out her cell phone, when she glanced at the slip of paper clutched in her hand and punched in the numbers. Slowly, painfully. She could understand the numbers. They weren't like the letters. And she could understand the voice on the other end.

"Hello?"

"Miss Kirasagi?"

"Kairi? Hey, hey, uh, it's Yuffie, yanno. Not Miss Kira--"

"Yuffie, you're my chauffeur, right?"

"At your service. You need a lift?"

"If it's not too late, yes. I need one right away. I'm at my office. Do you have the address?"

"Yeah, Aerith gave it to--"

"Good. I'll be waiting outside. I have some things I need to take care of, okay? You're not going to be busy for a while, are you?"

"I'm all yours."

"Okay. Thank you."

Yes, Kairi understood. And it was the understanding that killed her. The fact that she had actually understood long, long ago, but had simply forgotten.

(x) (x) (x)

**Important Note 1:** No, Cloud and Sora have not just had sex.

**Important Note 2:** I'm not entirely sure what I was going for with this chapter, but sorry it was so long in coming. XO And I know that last scene is really 'WTF?' and I apologize. Er, just take what you want to from it and the rest will make sense later-- I promise! Be prepared for more Riku and Leon than you'll know how to handle in the next chapter. Sadly, Cloud and Sora won't appear again until chapter nine.

Um, um, and yes. I'm so sorry it took me so long to update. I hope the (_ridiculous_) chapter length sort of kind of starts to make up for it?


End file.
